Your Move
by LZClotho
Summary: Post-"A World Without Magic." When Emma visits Regina during her house arrest, the former mayor/queen's loneliness leads to chess... and other things. Note: Mature content. Swan Queen 'ship. Same-sex content.
1. Chapter 1

_written: June 7, 2012_

_first posted: June 8, 2012_

_Thanks go to Beth H for beta reading!_

**Author's Note:** This takes place after the events of season 1 for the series "Once Upon A Time." it contains spoilers about the season's events. So if you haven't seen the season finale, "A World Without Magic" yet, this isn't going to make much sense to you.

**Author's Note 2:** This story features the characters of Emma Swan and Regina Mills in an explicit same-sex encounter. If this is not your cup of tea, do NOT read. Otherwise, enjoy.

**Summary:** When Emma visits Regina during her house arrest, the former mayor/queen's loneliness leads to chess... and other things.

**Your Move**

a Once Upon A Time, Swan Queen story

by LZClotho

Sheriff Emma Swan stepped out of her official vehicle onto the drive of the large white mansion in the exclusive Storybrooke neighborhood. She took off the baseball cap and adjusted her ponytail. With a glance around the immediate area, she confirmed no one else present and locked the vehicle, slipping the keys into the right pocket of her khaki uniform pants. She adjusted the collar of her summer-casual duty shirt, a sky blue oxford with the Sheriff's logo sewn onto the left breast. Before approaching the front door, mindful of her duty to perform, Emma replaced the baseball cap and circled the house to the right, studying the grounds for signs of recent activity. From the side yard the street was no longer visible, hidden by meticulously kept trellises of flowering vines. The same worked in reverse, granting the home's resident a much-needed privacy. Emma noted that a folding deck chair had been brought to the small cobblestone covered space along with a plastic table on which rested a paperback book, opened facedown to preserve the page. She wondered why Regina would have left the book outside.

Rounding the far corner of the house, Emma had her answer. Regina Mills, former mayor of Storybrooke, Maine, knelt in her flower garden pulling weeds. Her feet were tucked under her thighs out of sight. She wore denim shorts which took Emma by surprise. She hadn't thought the woman owned anything in denim. The brunette's head and body were bent toward her task. Hands encased in gardener's gloves moved among the flowering plants uprooting the invaders. She wore a wide brim hat to guard against the sun and big-lensed sunglasses that obscured a great deal of her face. A water bottle with a flip-top cap rested in the grass alongside her right thigh. Emma approached quietly, continuing to examine the bent head as she neared. The woman wore a sleeveless top in navy blue, showing off the suntanned and muscled shoulders which were the result of her outdoor work. Emma noted the top of the joint was beginning to pinken; Regina had been outside too long.

She announced herself with a cool, "Regina."

The woman on her knees startled. Emma realized why when her head turned and she saw the buds and wires of a set of headphones tracing down the front of her body to a music player in leather pocket clipped onto her waistband. Regina stumbled to her feet, stripping off her gloves. She winced though glancing toward her own feet. Glancing downward as well, Emma could now see the woman's feet were bare, long and elegant with narrow toes. Compared to the delicate bone structure, the bulky court-ordered black and silver electronic bracelet looked out of place encircling her left ankle. Emma reached out a hand and steadied Regina as the woman removed her earbuds.

"Sheriff."

Emma let go. Regina bent over and picked up her water bottle. "Let's get this over with."

With Emma following, Regina gathered her book from the side yard and then went into the house through the nearby kitchen entrance. Removing her hat, she placed it on a coat hook behind the door, lightly fluffing her shoulder length hair, which was a little longer than the mayor's usual cut, Emma noticed. Apparently satisfied she was as composed as she could be, Regina spoke again, this time with her back to Emma, facing the kitchen sink, hands on the stainless steel edge. "May I get you something to drink, Sheriff?"

Always polite. Stiff. Formal. Emma saw it now for what it was. A cover. For fear. Frustration. Sadness.

Grimacing, Emma pondered her response. She usually declined Regina's hospitality, never forgetting the apple turnover. But Emma never quite knew what to say to the woman on her weekly check-ins. She had a report to write and usually spent about half an hour questioning Regina on her activities. Beyond that, they spoke little. This was only the end of the first month. though. If it wasn't going to drive her crazy, Emma thought, she might try to find other things to talk about with Regina to make it more bearable.

She didn't want to fight. She knew though that most of the time she and Regina crossed paths in her first year in Storybrooke that's all they'd done. Especially when it came to Henry. The realization gave her pause. The few exceptions had also been about Henry. Would Regina welcome news of her son's activities, or would it cause animosity? Emma decided the gamble was at least worth one shot. "Yes, thank you. I don't have to be back out on patrol right away."

Regina turned. Her brown eyes captivated Emma suddenly, wide and open. Her lips quivered before she spoke. "I... You would?"

"Yes." Emma tried a faint smile. Regina's was just as tentative in response.

Regina opened her refrigerator. She reached in and pulled out a decanter. The amber liquid in it was barely a finger-width high. Emma saw Regina swallow. "Well, I can get another bottle." She went to a small door set in the wall beside the entrance to the kitchen. Emma saw when it was opened that it was an inset wine rack. One lone bottle was visible. Regina withdrew it slowly. She dusted off the label and pursed her lips.

Regina gripped the neck and exhaled. She looked at Emma then quickly away, rummaging in a nearby drawer. "What is it?" Emma asked.

"My last bottle."

"Don't open that," Emma protested. "Save it for a special occasion."

Regina's expression was impossible to read for a moment. Emma thought it would've been perfect for a snappish comeback like "What special occasions?" But the woman declined the opening and instead looked to be thinking of something else. "The study," Regina suddenly murmured and immediately started out of the kitchen. Emma followed.

The house was as impressive as always, Emma thought as they moved down the corridor, spotless in its black and white motif, though she did notice that the large front foyer mirror was gone before Regina gestured for Emma to enter first. Emma recalled the room from their very first meeting. Regina went to the small table with a decanter and three short cut crystal glasses. The decanter appeared to be slightly less than half full. Regina poured two half-glasses, passing one to Emma as she stepped forward.

Emma watched Regina drink first, the fingers of the woman's hands playing over the surface of the crystal. "It's safe, Sheriff," Regina said, taking the glass away from her lips. Emma noted the way Regina's lips shone from the moisture of the drink as she lifted her own glass to her lips and sipped. It really was the best apple cider she'd ever tasted.

Regina started to settle to the sofa then paused looking down at her knees still slightly dirty. Setting down her glass on the low table between them, she brushed at her knees and then swept her hands behind her back and down over her rear and thighs before sitting. Emma settled to the other couch, continuing to sip and watch her hostess/charge over the rim of the glass. Regina continued to present an anxious aspect even as she picked up her glass and attempted to hide it behind the rim of her glass.

"Regina," Emma asked abruptly. "Are you all right?"

Regina's brow furrowed, then cleared abruptly to neutral. "Of course, Sheriff. I've been very busy."

"No, I... Do you get many visitors?"

"Yes." Emma saw the way she ducked her gaze away before returning it to Emma's face and that told a different story. Emma canted her head. Regina remained stubbornly silent for a long time as her gaze discerned the lie. Regina exhaled. "No one has visited since you checked on me last Sunday, Sheriff."

"You had a few in the first few days, if I recall."

"Yes," Regina replied. "They've got better things to do now."

"The fairies haven't figured out a way to get everyone back yet," Emma said.

"I see." Regina's tone was strangled, a mix between curiosity and disdain. Emma continued to pursue the topic.

"Perhaps I should bring someone to discuss the situation with you next week." Regina's expression quickly shifted to alarm. Emma waited.

"I won't have anything to say to them."

"Because you won't tell them... or because you don't know?" Emma asked.

Regina pursed her lips again, but then her shoulders drooped. "I don't know."

"Regina-"

"I don't! OK? I don't know how to fix this. The curse broke. I saw you do it! As far as I know we were supposed to all be whisked right back! I thought that was what the cloud would do, but it didn't. Instead it brings magic _here_! And I can't access any part of it, but Rumple's dancing all over town, and the fairies, damn them, have been all over this place with their stinking dust!"

Emma watched Regina heave herself to her feet and pace through the small confined space, a sleek panther trapped in a cage. "Regina, it's-"

Abruptly Regina spun toward her and cut her off. "Ask your questions and leave me alone!"

Emma shot to her feet. "I'm trying here, Regina."

"Trying what?" Regina snapped.

Emma put up her hands, palms out. "To make this easier."

"If it's so hard, why do you keep coming here?"

"It's my job."

"Assign a deputy to do it. You have no shortage of them now. Half of Snow White's guards no doubt would jump at the chance."

"Jump at the chance to murder you, you mean. Regina, I swore we'd handle this with the laws of this world. Not the other one. I am sworn to protect you to the best of my ability." Emma gestured. "Now, have a seat."

Regina resettled herself onto the couch. She did not relax back into the cushions, however, looking alertly at Emma instead. "All right. Starting at the top. No, I have had no visitors this week. The in-house security cameras now linked to the sheriff's office can confirm that. I had to chase a stray cat from the yard trying to eat my daylilies. I ordered two bags of groceries from the market, which were delivered on Wednesday. I mailed one letter yesterday."

That was new. Emma asked, "To whom?"

Regina looked like she wouldn't say but then shrugged. "You'll know soon enough I suppose. I wrote to Henry."

Emma nodded. It probably would be in Monday's mail delivery. "Henry's doing all right," Emma offered. "School's out at the moment as you know, and he spends a lot of time out at the playground you had built for him and the other kids."

Regina couldn't hold back her curiosity. "Does he -?" Emma's head shake stopped the question.

Emma let her have her quiet thoughts for a moment. "What's on your agenda for the coming week?"

Fingering her hair, Regina asked, "Is there some way I can get a haircut?"

Emma dipped her head in acknowledgment. "I'll work out the logistics and call you. How about Wednesday?"

"Thank you."

"Anything else?"

"I get the newspaper every day, but the puzzles are getting tiresome."

"I can't get you internet access," Emma stated.

"No, I..." Regina trailed off. "I just need... mental stimulation."

"Kind of tough just having a conversation with yourself."

"I saw this chess commentary in the paper. They run a mail game service, pairing up people. It would mean approving another pen pal. Probably outside Storybrooke since I'm not likely to find someone here in town willing to correspond with me."

"I play," Emma said.

Regina frowned. "Are you volunteering to be my pen pal, Sheriff?"

"No. How..." Emma trailed off. "I can't lengthen these visits all the time, but... I have Tuesdays off. What if... that became game night... or... something?" Emma quirked her lips in a smile, realizing even as she said it how awkward it all sounded - and probably would be. Regina would never go for it. "N-" She shook her head.

Abruptly Regina cut in. "I accept."

Emma's gaze found Regina's. Both women froze in place. Slowly Emma offered a smile.

Regina oh so slowly returned it.

"I'll bring a board on Tuesday," Emma said.

"I have one here." Regina walked to a wall cabinet. Opening it she withdrew a hand-carved wooden box just large enough to house a chessboard and pieces, Emma thought.

When Regina brought it to the table between them and set it down, Emma reached out and traced her fingers over the intricate carving of a castle with figures representing all the chess pieces scattered like a melee fight in the foreground. Armored knights on horseback, priest and priestess in long robes hands lifting staffs, helmeted soldiers with short swords, a queen in veil and slender dress, her crown mere filigree upon her long hair, her handsome king standing tall in boots, a sword slung at his waist, his own crown encrusted with jewels.

"This is gorgeous, Regina. Where did you get it?"

"My... father... gave it to me when I was ten summers old." Regina had reverted to the time measures of youth rather than speak of it in years as this world would. Emma looked up as Regina's hands came between her own and lifted away the wooden box cover. "He... He taught me how to play." There was a soft light of joy mixed with sadness that had been evident in the brunette's tone.

The pieces inside were as ornately carved as the care given to the cover image. The white pieces were off-white marble, the veins a shadowy blue, dancing through the surface like lightning. The black pieces were ebony marble, but so uniformly inky black it should've been impossible to discern the detail, but the carving again was superior to anything Emma had ever seen. Somehow each seemed even more detailed than its counterpart white piece. She'd never seen black marble so flawless. Regina lifted out the board, which also looked to be marble. It had alternating ebony and white square spaces, with finely carved lines separating one from the next, for the playing field. The four edges beyond the playing field was marbled black and white, the colors gnarled around one another like vines competing for the board's space. It all looked to be a single piece of marble. The workmanship was, in a word, breathtaking.

Emma lifted one of each color piece in each hand. "Black or white?" she asked.

Regina took the black piece, a priestess, from Emma's right hand. "You are the guest," Regina said. "So you go first."

"White always goes first," Emma pointed out.

"Good to know I won't have to teach you the game, Sheriff."

Emma placed her pieces on her side of the board as Regina did the same across the table. The woman was leaning forward eagerly, elbows on her knees, even after she had finished arranging her pieces. Emma studied the woman's face as she moved her king's pawn two spaces forward.

Regina glanced up at Emma, brown eyes revealing golden swirls and a quirk of the lips that was very close to the former mayor's all-too-familiar smirk. She nodded though and moved her king's pawn also two spaces forward. "A standard opening. I certainly hope, Miss Swan, that your gamesmanship becomes more imaginative as we proceed."

"We'll see," Emma replied noncommittally. She studied the board, considering all the potential moves, several layers of possible responses by Regina, and finally made her selection. She released the piece and glanced up to see Regina already studying the board, her right hand reaching toward it, her left arm crossed over her knees. The way she leaned forward, Emma realized she could see directly down the small gap at the top of the woman's blouse. Emma looked away, her gaze instead falling on the side of Regina's throat, where the glitter of a tiny diamond stud glinted from behind locks of dark hair. She found her tongue tip darting out over her lips.

There was a tap on the table. Emma noticed it was Regina's fingernail and met Regina's eyes with a shrug. Quickly she glanced at the board configuration and straightened her back, rubbing her hands on her knees as she contemplated her options. She reached for her glass, appreciating the cool liquid sliding down her throat. As she was about to swallow the rest, she recalled it was the last of Regina's supply and put the glass down without finishing it right away. Better make it last.

She wiped the moisture from her fingertips on her pant leg before reaching for her queen side bishop, well, priestess. She lifted it and studied the intricately carved face. "I've never seen anything so... perfect," Emma commented.

"Thank you."

Emma placed the figure back on the board where it had been and considered the board again. Finally she made her move.

Regina cupped her chin in contemplation. A faint light danced in her eyes as she selected the queen's knight, sweeping one of Emma's pawns from the board. The move threatened Emma's priest. She considered retrenching, but the reversal might leave her castle exposed to Regina's priestess. Hmmm.

Finally selecting a partial cover action that drew attention to another part of the board, Emma sat back. Regina once again bent close over the board. Emma studied the top of the bent head. The machinations of the woman's mind absolutely fascinated Emma. She was certain, Storybrooke Mayor, Evil Queen, or chess opponent, Regina Mills never stopped calculating all the potential actions and their outcomes.

"So how come you...?" Emma shook her head and trailed off, finished her current move and swept one of Regina's pawns from the board. "Never mind."

Regina looked up at her, her expression one of confusion. "What?"

"Nothing. I apologize. Didn't mean to distract you." Emma gestured back to the board.

Regina shrugged, squared her shoulders and made her move. Emma nodded as she watched Regina nudge the black queen forward one space.

Emma countered with a move by her white knight. She considered, if Regina didn't come up with something soon, it would be her game in another five, or perhaps six, moves.

Three plays later, Emma was down two more pawns and a castle and stared at the board in disbelief. Where had that come from? She leaned forward, forearms resting on her knees, hands dangling loosely, but her mind tightly focused. Finally she saw the endgame materialize once again and took Regina's knight with her priestess.

After a while of listening to the quiet breathing, the occasional tap of marble against marble as pieces moved around the board, the ticking of the clock on the mantle, and drifting quietly in the apple scent that permeated the room, Emma broke the silence. "You play excellently. I haven't seen Henry play." She moved a pawn.

"Henry doesn't-" Regina cut herself off and made what Emma realized was an unconsidered move on the chessboard. She didn't immediately take advantage, more intrigued by what had overset Regina's thoughts.

"I don't... know if Henry plays chess. I did teach him checkers when he was five," Regina amended, "but I... didn't get a chance to teach him chess." Regina bent over the board, resting her chin on her palm. Emma knew that avoidance tactic. It wasn't about contemplating her move, it was about hiding her face from Emma.

Sincerely, Emma said, "I'm sorry."

Regina reared up, her eyes dark and pained, her throat flushed. "Are you?" There was a mix of venom and pain in her tone.

Emma sat back from the board. "Yes, Regina, I am."

Regina bit her lip. "Will you tell me what he says about my letter?"

Letter? Oh, right. Emma licked her lip, remembering the beginning of their conversation, well, the interview she was required to conduct as part of the house arrest monitoring. She inclined her head. "I will."

Looking at the board as the sheriff moved a piece, Regina realized she had not been paying attention and the board configuration momentarily stymied her. She canted her eyes upward, trying not to move her head, so Emma Swan wouldn't notice. She still hadn't figured out why the blonde woman had agreed to play with her. Being around Regina obviously made the woman uncomfortable. Regina had caught the woman fidgeting, buffing her palms on her pants, swallowing hard, licking her lips... Regina's eyes widened momentarily as she considered the symptoms. Ridiculous! Regina shook her head to clear the thought and doubled down on her concentration.

Emma Swan was probably the best chess player Regina had played in... as long as she could remember. She'd begun beating her father at the game by the time she was twelve. Their games ended when she went to Leopold's court. Even when he visited, he said it was inappropriate for him to keep her away from her family for so many hours and would only rarely give her a game. Her family! That was a laugh. Leopold and Snow had never been her family. Regina twisted her lip in a sneer and played an aggressive move, taking the white priest off the board with a hard push from her black priestess. The piece went airborne. Emma's hand snapped out at the same time as Regina's to recapture it. Regina's hand closed first; Emma's fingers cupped the back of Regina's.

Regina's thundering heart skidded to a halt as her gaze snapped up to Emma's.

"I've got you in two moves if you do that," Emma said quietly.

Breathing hard, Regina fought down her heart rate. It was deplorable to lose control like that, she thought. Backing up, Regina placed the piece back on the board. Rubbing her hands on her shorts, she heard the clock in the hall chime a half hour. She had no idea which one. She felt like she'd been running a marathon. Every day for the last month. She squared her shoulders and brushed her fingertips into her hair line as she leaned forward again over the board.

"We don't have to finish," Emma said.

"Didn't you know? Once started, always finish," Regina quoted.

Emma asked, "Who said that?"

Her mother had actually, but Regina resolutely ignored that. "I don't know," she said. "But it's important to me to see things through."

Emma nodded. "I can see that about you. To the bitter end."

"You see me as pitiable then?"

"Aren't you?" Regina responded with her best glare. Emma conceded. "OK. Maybe not pitiable, but this certainly isn't how you planned it."

"You're right. It's not." They traded moves, each losing a pawn.

"How many of the last 28 years have been happy, Regina?"

"What?"

"This. All this was about getting your happy ending, right? How many of the last 28 years have been happy?"

Regina didn't have to pause and think. "Henry."

Emma nodded. "Yes. But he's only been here the last ten years." Emma canted her head to the side. "What about the rest of it?"

Regina didn't answer. Instead she moved her castle in close to Emma's fortifications. Time to end this, she thought, eying Emma's king. Regina leaned back, her gaze locked on Emma's hazel-green still searching her face, still wanting an answer. "What are you getting at?"

"You." Glancing away from Regina's face, Emma looked over the board and moved her remaining knight. Regina saw with alarm that the black queen was in her palm, almost out of sight as Emma's fingers closed around it. "White Knight takes Black Queen." Emma's gaze returned to Regina's face. Regina heard the soft thunk as Emma tipped over the black king. "Checkmate."

Rising to her feet, Emma pulled Regina up with her. Black queen still caught in her grasp, she brushed her fingertips through Regina's hair caressing her temple. The shiver started there and rolled down Regina's spine to lodge deep in her belly; she felt Emma's buckle press into her. Her knees shook. Emma's other arm was suddenly around Regina's waist, holding her up firmly against her. Her fingers slipped from Regina's hair to her cheek.

A slight pressure and Regina turned her head. Emma's eyes, the green flecked with gold, filled her field of vision. Then their lips were pressed together. Regina had never felt anything like it. The warmth of them made her own temperature rise. The softness of them moving over hers made her think of downy duckling feathers which she used to enjoy burying herself in in the barn as a child. Remembering that achingly distant more innocent time, Regina closed her eyes to prevent the fall of tears which burned behind them.

Emma's lips moved to her cheek and Regina gasped aloud. Dimly she heard another thunk and then both of Emma's hands were in her hair, fingers threading through, cupping the back of her head, lips trailing kisses over her cheeks, then closed eyes, and finally her forehead. Regina pushed her face into Emma's shoulder. The tears were hard, wracking sobs. She clutched Emma like she was the child and Emma the Savior she'd wished would rescue her all her life.

She let herself be guided to the couch, laid gently back, the cradle of her pelvis taking Emma above her. Lips returned to hers. Fingers slipped from her face to her chest; an errant thumb awakening the hidden flesh. And then, Emma's fingers warmed against the skin of her belly.

Languidly they traded kisses. Emma pulled back to look into Regina's eyes; Regina lifted up and recaptured the luscious mouth. She pulled out the ponytail from Emma's hair, and finger-combed the tresses until they were curling softly around Emma's shoulders and face. She nipped at Emma's bottom lip. Emma nipped back.

Regina shifted; Emma's knee slipped to the floor. Their pelvises ground together. Regina pushed up to her elbows, reaching for the buttons of Emma's shirt. Emma had tugged up Regina's top, not quite baring her bra-covered breasts. Momentarily they were both stymied, arms and hands in the way of the flesh they wished to reach.

"Regina!" Emma blurted, passion making her rasp. She plundered Regina's mouth, capturing her tongue. Emma pushed searching hands away from her chest and threw off her own shirt. Regina returned her hands to Emma's bare chest, capturing the small warm mounds of flesh in her palms, abrading the dusky nipples with her thumbs, and then grasping them between thumbs and forefingers. Emma moaned into her mouth and Regina took the sound in with reverent murmurs, as though it were fealty.

Emma's hands returned to Regina's abdomen, tracing the musculature there and making it quiver. They separated and Emma tugged the top over Regina's head, revealing her nakedness to the green gaze shining with hunger.

Regina was proud of her body, but it had been a long time since anyone had seen her, really seen her, this exposed. Graham didn't count. While she'd found pleasure in his arms, there had always been an emptiness to their coupling. Now, as Emma's gaze touched her nakedness for the first time, Regina knew bone-deep that this would count. Emma slowed her touches, fingertips barely skimming the curve of her breasts, the swell of her belly. Her gaze followed her fingers on Regina's skin and Regina felt it prickle in sensation as though her eyes were another touch.

Regina swallowed. "Emma?"

Looking up, Emma answered the unaskable question, "Yes, Regina." Regina heard the claim in it. She smiled, just a bare curve of her lips, but it felt so good. Emma dipped her head down until their foreheads met.

Regina's fingers slipped up through Emma's loose curls. Their lips came together in supplication. Regina slipped her hands around Emma's back, mapping the muscles as she moved. Up, she unclasped the tiny catches of bra, pushing the fabric away from the skin toward Emma's shoulder blades. Down, she met the barrier of Emma's waistband and belt. Skimming over the khaki fabric, she squeezed twin ass cheeks with her palms and made her desire explicitly known.

As Emma sat up, with one arm she lifted Regina with her, keeping their upper bodies warmly pressed together. She unpinned Regina's bra, alternating kisses down her shoulders as she slipped the straps down her arms and finally flung the undergarment out of reach. Regina cupped Emma's head to her chest as she submitted gladly to Emma's attentions, kissing the blonde curls into which she pressed her face, gasping her pleasure.

As Emma's hands drifted down her back and her mouth drifted between Regina's breasts, Regina brought her hands to Emma's shoulders and squeezed lightly. "Let me," she murmured. "Please, let me."

She fell into Emma's gaze when the woman lifted her head. The pupils were wide, the effect of her arousal making the green almost vanish. Regina reached for Emma's buckle, slipping the belt open and then releasing the button and zipper before returning to the bare skin of Emma's hips and pushing the pants down ahead of her caresses. Regina leaned forward with the motion and skimmed her lips across Emma's chest, circling first one breast inward to the nipple before moving to the other. The pants dropped to Emma's knees and she leaned back as Emma stood, removing them. They jangled with keys and other contents in the pockets as Emma laid them over the arm of the sofa.

Regina slid out of her denim shorts before Emma could help. But before they could be cast away, Emma's hand caught hers with the shorts in them. "I don't think I have ever seen you wear denim," she said, her throaty voice clearly demonstrating the grip arousal had on her. "It looks good."

The denim dropping from her hand, Regina rose to her knees, meeting Emma in the center of the couch. Each woman cupped the other's cheeks as they kissed, now both naked save for dainty bits of underwear: Regina's silk, Emma's cotton.

Emma sat down on the couch, pulling Regina into her lap. They were of a similar size, but the way Emma cradled Regina's back, lifting a breast to kiss made Regina feel delicate and fragile, cherished. Regina buried her face in Emma's hair, mindlessly clasping and unclasping her arms, trying to contain herself and yet restless to explode all at the same time. "Oh, please, please," she murmured over and over again. The sensations of Emma's mouth on her breast only intensified the tightness in her groin, until her hips surged upward, seeking the firm press of another. Emma's hand cupped Regina's center: The heel rubbed just above, and the fingers slipped beneath the fabric just below.

Regina gasped at the first press of two fingers; the heel of Emma's hand pressed down, the fingers curled inward more deeply. Regina felt her walls shake, fluttering, and then utterly collapsed under the onslaught of a shockwave thoroughly overwhelming her. She cried out, Emma's mouth trailing up from her breast to capture the sound. Those marvelous fingers continued to stroke and curl. Regina surged again in Emma's hands, an unbroken filly straining at the hold of a master horsewoman. Gradually the throbbing eased to a pleasurable ache, as muscles used far too infrequently pulsed with resurgent blood flow. Her heart beat with a strength that shook her entire frame. Emma wrapped her arms around her, and Regina clung on, fingers splayed across Emma's shoulders, squeezing as she reassured herself of the reality of this moment.

Emma palmed her cheek with a tiny bit of pressure, encouraging Regina to lift her head. When she did, Emma lightly traced the curve of her facial bones with her fingertips. "You're almost impossibly beautiful," Emma said, her voice low, reverential. "Your skin is flawless, except for this tiny scar here." Her fingertip brushed above the right side of Regina's lip. Regina kissed it as it passed. "Over the last year, sometimes I'd look at you, and I'd forget what I was doing, or why I was doing it, because looking at you simply took my breath away."

Regina lifted her own hand to cup Emma's cheek, slipping her fingertips across the shapely brow and down the strong nose. "Henry looks so much like you," she said. "You'd turn, or scowl, or smile at something he said. It always reminded me he was yours." Her voice laced with both the love and the pain that always brought. But she lifted Emma's chin now, pressing her lips against Emma's with a smile. "Thank you."

Her hand drifted across Emma's chest as they continued to kiss. When she skimmed a nipple, Emma's body jumped underneath her, reminding her that Emma was still unsatisfied. She was more patient than most of Regina's previous lovers would have been. But then again, until Graham, most were out for their own pleasure, not hers. Her frown must have shown because Emma kissed her cheek asking softly, "Something wrong?"

Regina shook her head and instead cupped Emma's head, bringing their lips together again. "I'm just going to show you how much I mean that." She straddled Emma's hips, using her superior position to drag her body and lips along the woman's entire length, sliding their calves and thighs together, intertwining them as she kissed down Emma's chest, latching first onto one nipple then the other, mapping her torso from sternum to belly button with her lips just skimming the undulating surface. Emma's hands were strong on her shoulders; Regina briefly wondered if this was something she shouldn't do.

But then she took in the faint marks that remained from Emma's pregnancy, the stretch marks that had been left by her son as he grew inside her. And she kissed them, every one. The hands on her shoulders softened, the hips under her chest surged. She stroked Emma's sides like she was gentling one of her father's horses, murmuring softly.

She kissed the honey-colored hair at Emma's sex, stroking her fingers over and through it. Parting it she found Emma's clit swollen, her labia soaked with her need. Regina settled her upper arms across Emma's thighs, using fingers from both hands to stroke and slowly coax open her legs and nuzzled into the heat. Emma's gasps and cries guided Regina's fingers and tongue until the pleasure could be contained no longer and Emma's core convulsed around Regina's fingers, and her chin and throat were soaked with Emma's fluids.

Emma's hand drifted into her hair as she continued to come down from her peak. Regina captured the hand and brought it between her lips and Emma's stomach, alternately kissing the knuckles and fingertips and the soft skin of Emma's belly, feeling the quivering aftershocks of Emma's orgasm. Emma coaxed her back up to settle in her lap; Regina sought out her mouth and Emma tasted herself on Regina's lips.

Regina felt Emma's one hand on her back stroking contentedly and clasped the other between her two palms, fascinated by it. She kissed the palm and Emma's fingers curled around stroking her cheeks. She studied the lifeline in the palm, recalling her palmistry lessons as she traced the creases that bespoke the blonde's destiny. Emma's hands were strongly defined with the tendons and sinew, the nails blunt and rounded but a touch of feminine vanity had them buffed to a natural shine. Emma's other hand continued to make soothing circles on Regina's back and she felt herself slowly going boneless, resting more fully against Emma.

"Do you remember touching my back at the mine when Henry and Archie were trapped?" she asked quietly. She looked up across the arch of Emma's shoulder to meet Emma's gaze. "Do you?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"I never forgot that touch. I think it was the first time someone touched me in care... since..." Regina exhaled. "Since Daniel."

Emma withdrew her hand from Regina's and brushed hair from Regina's brow. "Daniel?"

"When I was still my father's daughter, my mother's disgrace, Daniel... Daniel was the man I loved," Regina said softly. "My true love."

"But I thought you were Snow White's stepmother, King Leopold's wife?"

Regina nodded. "Daniel... was killed."

"I'm sorry, Regina." And Regina could see she really was as the green of her eyes flickered with gold like dust dancing on the wind in a field. Regina rose, fetching a blanket from the other sofa. She repositioned herself, wrapping her arms around Emma's shoulders as Emma's arms encircled her waist. Then she arranged the blanket over their nude forms, laid her head on Emma's shoulder, kissed the space where throat and shoulder met, and closed her eyes in her first real sleep in weeks.


	2. Chapter 2

_At the end of "Your Move", I noticed there were some things left unsaid, questions left unanswered, and finally it occurred to me that I couldn't just leave the story at that. So this is the continuation. I'm about two parts ahead of this now, and hope to maintain that pace and still regularly update. I hope you enjoy. Feedback is welcome. ~ LZ_

**Disclaimers and notes on part 1.**

**Your Move 2: The White Knight Retires**

Emma strode into the locker room at the Storybrooke Sheriff's office already pulling the badge from her hip and the shirt from her back. She threw her shoes one at a time to the floor. Stripping out of the uniform pants, she smacked the front of her locker to make the warped metal door bounce open. She retrieved her jeans and preferred white tank top, snapping the latter over her head and down her torso before dropping to the wobbly wooden bench and tackling the task of getting into her jeans.

Her motions were jerky, as uncoordinated as her thoughts and emotions. When her boot wouldn't slip on easily she finally yanked at the leather ties. In a burst of undirectable rage, she threw it at the locker. "Fuck!"

She reached into her jeans as she stood, still barefoot, and went to the mirror over the tiny porcelain sink. "What in the hell did you think you were doing?" she challenged her reflection. She slammed her fists into the wall either side of the mirror before fishing in her pocket for a hairband and yanking her hair – hard enough to justify the tears brimming at the corners – into a semblance of a ponytail.

Fingers passing across her face reminded her exactly what she had done. Or rather, who. _Regina!_

Emma Swan _never_wanted to stay. She never wanted the entanglements that came with maintaining relationships beyond a single contracted job, or a single night. She never wanted to crave someone so much she couldn't leave – before they left her.

Yet Regina Mills had made Emma feel those exact feelings, think those exact thoughts. When Emma woke from dozing, she had found Regina fully asleep in her arms, dark head resting on Emma's shoulder, even breathing dancing across Emma's collarbones.

She had wanted nothing more than to kiss the slightly parted lips and resume their previous activities. Her hands had even started moving over the soft skin and musculature of Regina's naked back.

That had terrified her into action. Wrapping the blanket tightly around the nude woman, Emma escaped the sofa, dressed herself and started for the door. A glance back over her shoulder however had stopped her in her tracks. She couldn't leave the woman there. So she had lifted Regina, cradling the sleeping woman in her arms, and carried her to the master bedroom. Not once did the brunette stir. Emma found herself stroking the loose locks of hair that had fallen to Regina's cheek even as she looked from the bed, to the window, to the door. Finally she had forced herself from the bedroom, without leaving a kiss on the woman's forehead that her body was practically screaming to give. Then finally, she quit the house.

And she intended to keep going. Now, ponytail smoothed, Emma picked up the badge once again and exited the locker room. The equipment room door across the way was open. She stepped in, expecting to see one of the White castle guards who had become her deputies when the curse broke sitting at the dispatch system keyboard. But the small space was empty.

An abandoned coffee mug sat next to the control board. Must've gotten a call, Emma decided. Well, they could handle it without her. Emma's gaze drifted up from the board and caught the video monitor. A four-square divided screen revealed four views within the mayor's mansion. Right, the security system turned house-arrest monitoring. Shown were the first floor foyer, the main hallway leading back to the kitchen, the exterior entrance to the kitchen, and outside the front door. She flipped a series of switches and found two more views: an angle within the front room that included the sofas, and a single camera that showed alternately the view up the staircase and the upstairs bedroom corridor.

The very corridor along which Emma had just carried a sleeping, naked Regina. It didn't take much of a leap for Emma to realize that this was probably the reason the deputy had left his post.

No one was going to believe Emma could be impartial now. Trouble was, Emma wasn't sure she could be either. She had only gone to check on the woman out of duty, hadn't she?

Seeing Regina so lost, beaten, and frustrated had sparked something in Emma. She recalled, as if watching outside herself, as she reached for the brunette at the conclusion of their chess game. Oh god!

The things she had said. The things Regina had said. Seriously? Maybe everyone was right and Regina was lying and held some magic.

All right. Fine. Emma got back to her feet with renewed purpose.

"Emma!" She heard Mary Margaret – Snow White – just as she crossed the threshold to the corridor. Turning she saw the woman striding toward her flanked by David – or rather King James – and Leroy, his fairytale identity recently confirmed as the dwarf Grumpy, still in his deputy uniform.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimers and notes on part 1.**

**Your Move 3: Returning the Queen to the Board**

Regina opened her eyes to darkness. In the next breath she realized she was under a blanket on a bed. From the smells she recognized that it was her bedroom. But last she remembered was falling asleep on the sofa downstairs. In Emma's arms.

Tentatively she stretched her hand behind her, searching the space next to her in the bed. Empty. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. Her eyes gradually adjusted to the room's low light and, despite a refusal to think about _why_, she let her gaze search the room. The door from the corridor was closed, and the adjoining bathroom's door was open, moonlight from the small window over the bathtub barely filtering through.

She closed her eyes against the evidence and focused on the sounds of the house. The air conditioner was cycling faintly, and there was the slight rustling of the night winds through the trees outside her window. Nothing else moved in the house. The same experience she had for the last thirty nights.

Exhaling and pushing aside the blanket, Regina accepted that she was alone. From the back of the bathroom door she retrieved her robe, donning and belting it before she headed for the door. Her hand stilled on the knob. Reaching over, she turned on the light switch.

The shadows in the room vanished, but they only deepened on her heart. She recognized the blanket on the bed was from the sofa downstairs and retrieved it to return to its proper location. As her hands slipped over the fabric she recalled pulling it over her and Emma's nakedness which brought back in vivid detail the entire afternoon.

Her hand fisted, futilely grasping at the remembered sensation of Emma's skin against her palms, her fingers. Her lips. Oh god, what have I done?

Regina remembered how hard she had cried in Emma's arms. She hadn't lost control in front of someone like that in years. She rested her forehead against the door frame. By force of will she shoved it all down incrementally, compartmentalizing it all away to be dealt with later. Foolish, she castigated herself. And it sounded like her mother's voice in her head. Weakness.

She walked briskly downstairs and put the blanket back over the sofa without lingering in the room.

Clearly she and the sheriff had mutually scratched an itch. Regina would do well to remember her own words: People don't change; they only fool themselves into thinking they do.

Two women who never did emotional entanglements were not going to change simply because they had sex.

Regina refused to acknowledge the painful knot forming in her throat at the thought. To ease it, she lifted the half empty tumbler from the table beside the chessboard and drank down the few remaining sips of hard cider in one swallow big enough to bring tears to her eyes. The alcohol tingled on her tongue and lips, and into her fingertips. Shifting the glass to her other hand, she rubbed her numb fingertips together. The warm response was expected.

The blue-white glow made her drop the glass from her other hand.

Regina stared at her hand. Experimentally she rubbed her forefinger and thumb together again. Nothing happened. She looked up around herself. Had she imagined it?

Deciding she must have, she bent to retrieve the glass which, due to being thick and stout crystal, hadn't shattered upon impact with the deep pile carpet.

The hand that cupped it was suddenly wrapped in a blue-white light. She hadn't imagined it. A smirk tilted her lips. Magic, she realized. A frown, however, quickly overtook the smirk as the light faded away. She'd felt the same anticipation, and then loss, when the magic cloud had been coming, only for it to wash over her and leave her completely unchanged.

Why would it be in the glass? Regina looked around for the other glass. Spying it on the table at the far end of the sofa, she realized two things in that moment. The one she held was Emma's glass, and she had just finished the cider in it.

She lifted the glasses together, side by side, Emma's in her left hand, and her own in her right. Exhaling she closed her eyes, recalling her earliest practices with magic in the other world, learning to simply sense its presence, like a smoke in the room. Her left hand began to tingle; she opened her eyes to see the blue-white light shimmering once again around it. Her right hand remained unchanged.

Crystals often could be used to capture magic, holding it in reserve. Natural things of many types could be reservoirs. Emma must have some magic, Regina reasoned. Either as a result of being the product of true love, or as a result of Rumpelstiltskin's magic cloud.

She had also touched the chess pieces, Regina realized, looking down now at the ornately carved natural marble board.

* * *

At the Storybrooke Sheriff's office, Snow and James were laying down the law with their daughter. "We'll do what we should have done in the first place," Snow said sharply.

Emma threw her Sheriff's badge on the desk between them. "I won't kill her for you," she refused. "I won't do that to Henry."

"Henry's fine," James said.

"He won't be if I kill his mother," Emma snapped. "If you want your sword," she told her father, "it's on a pile of dragon ashes under the library."

Emma headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Snow demanded.

"I'm going home," Emma replied.

* * *

Regina eyed the chess board with its fallen black king, the white knight positioned where Regina had last placed her black queen. She realized the black queen was not on the table with the other pieces which Emma had removed from the board during their play. Without moving from her seat on the sofa cushion, she searched the rug near the table leg. Finally she spotted the wayward piece, almost invisible in the shadows along the bottom of the sofa. She lifted it gingerly only between her left thumb and forefinger.

A tingle shot up her arm and slammed into her chest. She gasped and her hand closed reflexively into a fist around the piece.

_Emma!_ A vision of the woman in tank top, jeans and that godawful red leather jacket filled Regina's mind. She was alone behind the wheel of her deplorable yellow car. Emma glanced into the rear view mirror, green eyes sparking with fear.

Suddenly Regina knew this was happening now, right this minute. Emma was leaving.

In desperation, Regina thought only one word – an order, a plea.

_Stop!_

* * *

Out on the access road leading to the interstate highway, just feet before the "Leaving Storybrooke" sign, Emma Swan felt the steering wheel jerk in her hands and the little car skidded into a fishtail on the dry road.

"What the hell?" Emma searched the dashboard gauges for a clue. The front of the car impacted a tree. Her head slammed into the steering column and everything went white, red, then black coalescing around familiar brown eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimers on part 1.

_A/N: Sorry for the delay in updating. I hope it will feel worth it._

_Thanks to Laura D for beta reading!_

**"Your Move" Part 4**

by LZClotho

_"When somebody tries to leave Storybrooke, something bad happens."_

Henry's words danced hazily through Emma Swan's mind as she drifted in and out of consciousness. Or at least she thought she did. Brief flashes of light illuminated her surroundings, but they didn't stay the same. Some were of the inside of her VW Beetle, and she remembered being on the road driving out of town. Others were of a large tree trunk looming in front of her, sometimes close and sometimes far away. Occasionally a pinpricking sensation skittered across her palms or the backs of her hands. She thought she heard rain thrumming heavily against steel, and sometimes that flat slapping sound it made against pavement.

She recognized her face was wet, though alternately cold enough to make her skin feel tight and warm enough to burn behind her eyes. Her back and hair were soaked too.

Conscious moments incrementally began to outnumber and outlast the unconscious ones where she saw a dull red behind her eyelids and felt every throbbing beat of her heart in her chest echoing painfully in her temple. Now she felt the pressure of something pinning her legs. An attempt to turn her head to assess the situation froze her in place with shooting pain that seemed to be trying to turn her spine into a pretzel.

Her throat hurt and she realized she was screaming. Clamping her jaw shut, she turned her mind to self-preservation and ordered her arms to move, to push at the surface beneath her.

Nothing happened. Though her shoulder muscles screamed with agony, she did not move. Her arms did not feel pinned. With alarm she realized she couldn't feel them at all.

She was cold and wet and oh, so very tired. Laying her face against cold yellow metal she no longer could fight off the cloak of unconsciousness stealing over her once more.

* * *

Indecisive for all of about thirty seconds Regina grabbed the phone and dialed the station. No one answered. Fuck. Of course, Emma wasn't there. Regina left a message on the voicemail. Without identifying herself she reported an accident on Main Street southbound about half a mile out of town and hung up. Threshing her fingers through her hair she closed her eyes and tried recreate the connection to Emma. Heartbeat thrumming in her ears and throbbing in her temple, behind her eyes she saw flashes of yellow, some light enough to be Emma's hair, and other times the bright yellow of her decrepit vehicle. Other times Regina saw green or foreboding black. But nothing had a shape, only colors. She continued to clutch the chess piece, the black queen, in her palm, but whatever magic it had to show her Emma had been depleted by the momentary connection.

She heard a rainstorm slowly gathering force outside. Setting the chess piece back on the table, Regina eyed the board, torn between trying to reform the connection with more magic, and simply acting on the information she did have.

Grabbing her full-length gray rain coat from the closet, she shrugged into it and belted it quickly. Her purse was next, and she scrabbled for the keys in the dark depths. She stepped across the threshold of her home and ran to her Mercedes. As she opened the car door, a high-pitched alarm squealed from her ankle.

Regina cursed and sat on the driver seat. She wrestled with the monitoring bracelet but couldn't get the sound to shut off. Her location had been noted to be beyond her allowable boundaries and the locking mechanism had sealed shut.

Damn! Regina slapped the driving wheel in disgust, accidentally activating the horn for a short blast. She jumped, hitting her head on the frame of the door. Swearing she covered the injured spot and turned, dragging her feet inside the car and tightening her hands around the steering wheel. Adrenaline already pouring through her system overflowed, spilling onto her cheeks as hot tears. She laid her forehead against the leather covering the wheel grip.

Suddenly Regina felt shooting pains down her spine. Emma! She shoved the key into the ignition, revving the engine as she turned it over. After grinding the gearshift into position, Regina roared the Mercedes backward down the driveway, changed gears and raced well beyond the speed limit to southbound Main Street.

* * *

Queen Snow White didn't look very much like a queen at the moment. Slumped in the chair at the sheriff's desk, in a pullover sweater and jeans, she pondered the scene just past with Emma and wondered what she should have done differently. Part of her vividly remembered being pregnant, stroking her belly, wishing all sorts of wonderful things for her child-to-be. But a much larger part of her remembered that she had spent the last six months as Emma' roommate.

Had she been too much the mother, and not enough the friend? How do you parent a child who has made 28 years worth of decisions without you?

Probably not by dictating to her. Snow grimaced and straightened in the chair. She looked up at James sitting on the corner of the desk looking down at her with concern. "I think I messed up."

"Emma will come around," he said confidently. "She'll know we were only looking out for her."

Snow pulled out her cell phone and dialed the apartment. Emma had stormed out about ten minutes ago. She should be there by now. However, the call rang through to voicemail without a response. She hung up and tried Emma's cell, getting the same result. "I think maybe I should go find her, talk to her. You take Grumpy, go get Regina, bring her here and lock her up."

Rapid footfalls sounded in the corridor and both looked up to see Grumpy push through the glass and steel doors. James and Snow were on their feet meeting him halfway.

"The Evil Queen is on the move!"

He held out a portable GPS tracker with a flashing black mark moving swiftly along the map of roads toward Storybrooke's boundary. It was just about to pass directly in front of the Sheriff's Office.

"Let's go!" Reaching into his jeans pocket, James pulled out his truck keys. With Snow and Grumpy on his heels, they raced outside.

* * *

Hearing vehicles racing past his shop, Gold stepped outside and watched as a familiar Mercedes with a beat up blue pickup about half a block behind both squealed their tires despite the wet street as they swerved left on the Main Street curve leading out of town. He recognized the blond herdsman-turned-king James and his true love Snow White in the front seat of the truck.

The shop door bell jingled as Belle joined him on the sidewalk. "Rumpelstiltskin, what is it?" she asked.

Rumpelstiltskin turned to smile at her, taking in her brown hair tied back softly with a blue ribbon and the blue flower print dress outlining her figure and swirling around her knees. Belle had adjusted well since being released from what she had described as a hidden hospital ward. He was still extremely angry when he thought about the fact that Belle had been so close by all these years, and he was carefully plotting his revenge on the former Mayor Mills. As long as she was under house arrest, the action having been decreed by their Sheriff-become-Savior Miss Swan, he decided it was unnecessary to act against Regina himself. He preferred it that way. Indirect was much more... fulfilling, watching someone direct their hostilities toward the entirely wrong party.

"Looks like someone grew tired of being kept in her cage." He turned and locked the storefront, pocketing the key before smiling at Belle. "Shall we go home, my dear?" He held out his elbow for her to take. Leaning into his cane he took her hand leading her down the street the few blocks to his home.

However, he continued to turn over the scene in his mind. The little street chase was a harbinger that something had changed. Something had driven Regina to break house arrest, which she knew would only diminish her chances of reconciling with her son who currently lived with Emma at the apartment she had shared with her mother. He would have to find out what exactly was going on.

* * *

Regina realized the severity of the situation when she was within a hundred yards of the crash. Emma's car had flipped onto the passenger side, sliding sideways off the roadway after impacting the massive trunk of a century-old tree. The front end looked to be almost entirely crumpled, an accordion of metal crushing the central frame of the car. Body half in and half out of the vehicle, Emma sprawled over the driver door through the window. Mud ran in rivulets around the underside, and she knew there was a ravine just beyond where the entire thing could wash out to in a matter of minutes.

Parking on the asphalt, she left her emergency lights on and stepped out. The pouring rain drove wet hair into her face. Pushing it aside she stumbled as her sight was momentarily blocked and slipped in the mud along the side of the asphalt. She was thankful for her more sensible choice of shoes, the canvas garden shoes she'd been wearing when Emma visited that afternoon. Wiping her hands on her jeans she carefully made her way toward the car to extricate Emma. She was reaching out toward the bumper when she heard an engine's roar approaching. Tires squealed, vehicle doors opened, and shoes slapped wetly onto asphalt.

A male voice boomed, "Do not touch her if you value your life!"


	5. Chapter 5

_Disclaimers on part 1_

_**Author's Note:**__ Thank you to everyone reviewing and favoriting. Your support is wonderful! Swan Queen Nation has the greatest fans! And today for Lana's birthday, I just happen to have some Action!Regina to share. So enjoy!_

**Your Move Part 5**

by LZClotho

Regina turned at the command to find Snow and James climbing out of a beat up blue pickup. Now she vaguely recalled another vehicle behind her at some point during her race through Storybrooke's downtown streets. What was it with this family and their deplorable vehicles? "Emma needs help!"

"You ran her off the road?" Snow screamed, rushing toward the yellow car. "Emma! Emma!" She leaned on the bumper, calling up to her daughter. Ominous metal stressing sounds made Regina grab Snow's arm and yank her away from the car.

"Don't push on the car! It's going to slip any second!" Regina looked at the blue pickup, particularly the frame-welded bumper. "Do you have tow cable?" she asked him.

"What?" He looked from his wife to Regina a bit bewildered, then registered her words. "Yeah, yes, in the truck bed."

Pointing him toward the truck when he didn't move, Regina barked, "Get it!"

There was the sound of metal creaking and then a sudden wrenching sound accompanied by the shattering of glass. Regina's gaze snapped back toward the yellow car to see Snow had managed to scramble to the top of the wreck, but had set the vehicle rocking and her booted foot had punched down through the weakened glass of the rear window. "Snow!" The anger in her voice was unsurprising, but Regina realized her shout held fear, too.

Affixing the tow cable to the front of his truck, James heard Regina's call. With the free end of the cable in his hands, he raced toward the car. "Hold on, Snow!"

Regina watched him tentatively searching, hand touching and then jerking back, around the bottom of the car for something to wrap the cable around. "The axle!" she suggested, rushing in and leaning on his shoulder. He shrugged her off, but a moment later the cable was around the rear axle and he was pulling it back toward the truck.

The sounds of straining metal pierced the air but the yellow car did not move.

"We need a winch! I'll call a tow company," James said.

"There isn't time," Regina protested.

James secured the free end of the cable back under his truck and went inside the cab to apply the parking brake for more stability. "Without a winch, I'll have to rock it loose and then back the truck up to pull the car free," he said.

"Then do it! Now!" Regina nervously eyed the slurries forming in the mud beneath the car. Soon the entire embankment would be washed away. The car, with Emma and Snow, would plunge into the ravine.

James climbed into the cab and started the engine. She heard the engine downshift as he put it in reverse. He let it out slowly, and the wheels gave a half turn, the tow cable pulling taut between the truck and car, then the right rear tire slipped, giving a squeal as it tried and failed to gain traction on the wet pavement. He left the engine running but pulled the brake and stepped from the truck cab. "It's too wet!"

He pulled out his cell phone. After entering a number, he said, "Abigail! Tell the fairies that Emma's been in an accident. We're out on the road south of town." He paused. "Yes. Right. OK. Hurry!"

Regina scrutinized the precarious position of the vehicle and Snow and Emma trapped in it. While Snow was struggling, Emma was extremely still. "We have to get them out of there," she informed James. "We can't wait for the fairies."

"How? Snow weighs barely six stone and she collapsed the window. There's no way I can climb the car."

"But you can anchor the cable." Regina stripped off her jacket, slid the belt free and tied it around the waist of her jeans. Rapidly soaking to the bone in her short sleeve top, she called Snow's name and threw the coat. "Catch!"

James ran to the cable, adding his weight to it as the car rocked slightly when Snow reached out and snagged the coat out of the air. "What am I supposed to do with this?" Snow asked.

"Cover your hand and smash around your leg. It'll break the rest of the window," Regina said.

Snow looked at James. Regina watched him nod to her. Damn! Freeing Snow was only the first step! They couldn't be second guessing her all the time! They still had to get to Emma. Finally Snow wrapped her right hand in the raincoat and smashed the rest of the window, freeing her leg. The car shuddered, but neither she nor it fell.

Regina took a deep breath. Snow started for Emma's position. That rocked the car and it did slide, nearly a foot, across the mud and grass.

"Snow! Damn you! Get down here!" Regina stood behind the car yelling up at the younger woman, her tone filled with both panic and anger.

Snow refused to move, instead holding onto the car frame.

"James, you've got to get her off!" Regina demanded.

"But Emma-"

She cut him off. "Snow is just too much additional weight. She keeps moving and the car will go over, taking them both!" She snapped her final words as James just stared at her.

The man offered up a different tactic. "Regina, go try putting the truck into reverse again!" James leaned back, throwing his weight into the cable. "Snow, work your way, slowly, to Emma."

Arguing would be a pointless waste of time they didn't have. Half hoping it would work despite the sickening feeling in her chest that it was futile, Regina ran to the truck and clambered into the cab. Deftly, she checked the gear, depressed the gas and released the parking brake. There was another lurch and she felt the wheels give another partial backward turn before she heard another squeal. She reapplied the brake and jumped back out of the truck. "It still won't go!"

Snow was unable to move beyond the broken out back window. "I can't reach her!" she yelled to James.

Regina heard another big engine approaching. James responded to the sound. "The tow truck!" he identified as it came around the curve into view.

Michael, the woodsman father of Hansel and Gretel, swung out of his truck cab and quickly assessed the situation. "I'll rig the winch!"

Snow climbed down from the car. Regina caught her arm before she could lose her footing on the wet asphalt. Snow looked at her in astonishment. "Thanks," she said.

"You're welcome," Regina replied curtly. Michael was running toward them with the hook end of the winch. "We haven't been able to pull it."

"I've got 12 horsepower on the winch," he said confidently. "It'll move."

Regina watched him maneuver carefully and place the hook within the yellow car's undercarriage.

A contingent of fairies arrived in another minute in a station wagon from the convent where they had been living as nuns. Regina said nothing as the Blue Fairy took in the scene.

James however went to the demure-looking brunette. "Emma's still trapped," he told her. The woman lifted her hands, shaping a spell in the air. Regina could feel the crackle of the magic from her fingertips even at this distance. It was a heady sensation, but she forced her gaze to Emma, her only concern.

The Blue Fairy threw the spell with both hands arcing up and out like casting a net to fish. Regina could almost see the air disrupting around it. She definitely saw the effect when it impacted something unseen, wildly sparking and hissing as it dropped to the ground without reaching Emma. The barrier was still in place.

Emma was on the outside!

"You did this!" Snow snapped her gaze to Regina, her eyes blazing. "Grab her!"

James started toward Regina, and she backed away.

The Blue Fairy's magic gripped her, catching her with one foot off the ground. She might have stumbled and fallen, but the restraint held her upright. All the angry faces and voices yelling at her. Regina froze, overtaken by horrific memory. The restraint too similar to her mother's coupled with her anguish at being unsuccessful in saving Emma broke her to tears, no will left for the fight at all. "I can't... I didn't... Please..."

Her voice trailed off into sobs as she sank to the ground, still held in the fairy's restraining spell. Unable to curl and hide her face, Regina Mills, former Evil Queen of the Enchanted Forest, dug her fingers into the asphalt, the pain of scraping them raw not doing a damn thing to relieve the pain inside her chest.

* * *

James, Snow, and the Blue Fairy stood in a tight circle heatedly discussing the situation, ignoring Regina who lay on the road surface between them and Emma still trapped in the car.

"The car is half in and half out," Snow said, "shouldn't that mean we can pull it back inside? All of it?"

"You've tried. With this world's most powerful non-magic tools. I suspect if we try to magically enhance the power, the car will simply shear in two, and the untethered half with the Savior will tumble into the ravine," the Blue Fairy said in quiet consideration. Snow openly gasped.

Having been listening, Regina stifled her gasp with the back of her hand, dark gaze flowing over to the car where Emma still hung out over the door. The woman's legs remained trapped behind the crushed front end, almost certainly broken. There was blood spatter on her hands and face, but Regina couldn't determine how badly the breaking window glass had torn into flesh. How Emma had pulled herself even half out the driver window was a miracle.

She started to push to her feet. The Blue Fairy's restraint enveloped her making her movements sluggish and heavy. Pushing at it resulted in a constriction around her chest that made it harder to breathe. Regina realized this was the same netting spell the fairy had conjured in hopes of rescuing Emma.

Regina considered that. She remembered what differentiated white magic from dark; in many ways she used to call it unimaginative, built as it was on a Good person's unwillingness to cause irreparable harm or death. Dark magic had no such qualms. Dark magic could and would often take the offense; striking hard, first, fast... The barrier was dark magic.

The conference circle between the fairy and the royals had grown silent as Regina crossed slowly to the car. Carefully not touching the car to overset its balance or jar the wounded woman's position, she strained to see and search Emma's slack face. She couldn't tell if the woman was even breathing, unable to see her chest moving or feel her breath on her face.

Reaching toward the blonde, Regina exhaled, thinking only of the moments she and Emma had shared a mere few hours ago. _Emma?_ She thought gently with her mind. _Emma, we're here._

Emma groaned. Regina's knees nearly buckled at the sound of life, even weak as it was. She fell against the car to steady herself.

A wave of magic so powerful it dropped Regina completely to her knees coursed through her hands breaking the Blue Fairy's restraint spell. It then flooded into her arms, and slammed her chest with every bit as much force as Emma had once used physically on her in a hospital closet.

"What are you doing? Get away! Stop it!"

Regina barely heard everyone yelling at her over the roar of the magic, like ocean waves crashing against her soul, buffeting her. She forced opened her eyes only realizing then that she had shut them in the midst of the maelstrom.

Looking to her right, she could suddenly _see_ the barrier. It manifest as a growling swirling mass, not a cloud, but a viscous writhing _being _of pure malevolent energy. She became certain this was a part of the original curse, not something that had been reconstructed afterward when Rumple brought magic to this world. Tentatively she reached out toward where the barrier existed unseen, feeling the energy crackle around her hand.

Within the barrier the experience was beyond painful, like subjecting herself to rodents chewing on her fingers. Then there was the heat and bubbling, like she'd stuck her arm into boiling tar. Pushing deeper, horrible images flashed through her mind of Emma's last seconds of consciousness, reliving it from the young woman's point of view. The wheel swerved in her hands, the tree looming before her, the sickening crunch of metal filled her ears. Regina screamed and fell backward, self-preservation driving her to pull her arm free.

She fell away from the car at the same moment she broke her connection to the barrier. The energy crackled away like static charge. Rolling onto her side she found everyone staring at her when she looked at them from the ground, cradling her arm. The pain in it was almost enough to make her stop breathing, hurting as it did down to the bone. Much of the anger in the faces staring at her slipped, however, as she shifted, trying to sit up.

"Your arm!" Michael gave an involuntary gasp; she looked down to see the result of her contact with the barrier. Her right arm from hand to shoulder was nothing but ripped skin and broken boils oozing pus and blood. Her fingers were shredded, revealing several patches torn down to the bone. God, what she wouldn't give for a shot of morphine; the pain was actually making her teeth throb.

"_Something terrible happens when people try to leave." _Adrenaline drained away. Impossibly more pain leeched in and filled up every corner of her mind; reality blurred, then warped to odd shapes, then she saw harsh bright splashes of color which faded to blessed pain-free blackness.

* * *

Regina came to feeling a sting on her face. She lifted her hand and blocked Snow's open palm from impacting her again with a weak grip of the woman's wrist. "What was that?" Snow demanded. "What did you do, Regina, damn you!"

Ignoring Snow's ranting, which was beyond getting on her nerves, Regina investigated the arm she had raised. Some of the worst damage had been repaired. While there remained some deeper gouges at least her bones were no longer showing through. She exhaled, lowered her arm and felt a shadow over her left shoulder. The Blue Fairy stared down at her, consternation twisting her face into an unpleasant scowl. She didn't have Rumple's personal antipathy toward the fairy, but the annoying little shits had never done a good turn for her in her entire life. "Why start now?" she demanded. It came out barely as a whisper.

Instead of answering the question, the Blue Fairy's gaze searched Regina's for something. She asked, "What do you intend to do?"

"I'm going through," Regina stated plainly. "Emma's magic can protect me. I'll free Emma from the other side and push her through to you."

"You're not going. If Emma's magic can protect someone, it'll be James or me who goes, she's our child."

Wrestling her body onto to her feet despite her uncooperative right arm, Regina pursed her lips. "It's not an experience I welcome, dear. You can try, but I think you'd rather I die than your precious Charming."

Regina looked at the empty air where she knew the barrier stood. How far did it extend outward? Could she simply run at it and be through if she was quick? What if she kept a hand on the car? Would it be enough to protect her? What if she could divert it somehow? Create a conduit and drain off the magic?

Emma's magic protected her from being consumed by the barrier which was how she could cross it at will. Her car protected those within it. Could it act like a magic sink, sucking away all the ferocity of the barrier, neutralizing it? But recalling the painful skitter of energy actively consuming her, Regina knew for any person to act as that conduit would be suicide. Something else? She remembered something else Emma had recently handled. "Does anyone have James' sword?"

Unsure of the purpose of the question, James answered truthfully. "Emma said she left it on a pile of dragon ashes under the library? I sent the dwarves to fetch it."

Regina exhaled. Would it still have any of Emma's energy within it after being handled by half a dozen dwarves? Rushing the barrier was looking like the best option.

Grumpy, and another dwarf who looked to be Sneezy – right, his pharmacy was on the same block as the library – drove up in Grumpy's truck. As the pharmacist stepped out, he held James' sword – sheathed. Regina prayed that meant it still held enough magic to do this.

James took it from Sneezy and started to unsheathe it. "Wait!" Regina said. "Throw it at the barrier."

Instead the man strode toward the barrier, unwilling to let the sword leave his hand.

Regina growled and rushed him. "I said _throw_it!" She pushed the sword hilt from his hand. It arced through the air then skittered several more feet along the ground. Impact with the barrier caused sparks and energy arcs that made all of Storybrooke's assembled citizens back away from the force of the blast and intensity of the light. Regina shielded her gaze with her forearm, desperate to see the result of her admittedly wild theory.

A narrow tunnel, maybe a body-width wide, had opened in the energy field. The edges of it crackled and wavered, like plasma in a vacuum.

Regina ran for the opening. Seeing the motion, Snow shouted. James tackled Regina, crashing with her into the asphalt. She screamed in frustration as the opening collapsed in on itself. The air around the sword exploded with another blinding light. When the light faded leaving only the rainy night, they could all see the sword had become a blackened, twisted hunk of metal. There would be no using it again.

"You stopped me!" she screamed. Turning under James' body, Regina beat at his chest until her arms could only fall limply. "I could have made it! I could have saved her!"

James withdrew, pulling his body off hers. Regina had collapsed in inconsolable tears. She didn't resist when he lifted her in his arms, cradling her under her legs and back, drawing her away from the edge. She buried her face against his throat, her tears soaking his open shirt collar.


	6. Chapter 6

_Disclaimers on part 1_

_Author's Note: Great feedback from everyone. Yes, I hear you about Snow and James' stubbornness; Emma comes by that trait quite honestly. It has taken a lot of observation, but finally, Snow catches a clue. Although, maybe it's too late?_

**Your Move Part 6**

by LZClotho

Regina still sat where James had moved her onto the tailgate of the blue truck. She couldn't look at the overturned yellow car, nor at Emma still trapped within it. She had failed. She had no more ideas left. Emma hadn't regained consciousness but the once. Snow had returned her coat to her – thrown it at her more accurately, before rushing back to James' side.

Curled tightly on her side within her coat, Regina listened but could not watch over the next hour. Two of the fairies, and James, had all tried to breach the barrier since the incident with the sword. With no further penetration and scores of injuries, they were no closer to retrieving Emma.

"Regina."

Ignoring Snow's approach, Regina turned her face away into the rain still dripping out of the sky, the freshwater washing the grittiest of the salty tears from her cheeks.

Coming to a stop nearby, Snow was silent for a long time. Regina closed her eyes as she conjured the memories of green eyes and the comforting hold of soft warm arms.

"Regina, what happened between you and Emma today?"

Swallowing the lump that formed in her throat, Regina shrugged.

"Grumpy said you... seduced her." The younger woman's voice was filled with distaste.

"Then that's what I must have done," Regina said dully, averting her eyes under Snow's scrutiny.

"It wasn't what happened though, was it?"

Regina said nothing, instead pulling her coat tighter around her.

Leaning against the sidewall of the truck, hands folded together over the steel, Snow mused aloud, "Emma's very beautiful, isn't she? Maybe the fairest in the land."

Lifting her head and feeling the heat in her face, Regina knew her expression showed her anger, confusion and disgust as she stared at Snow. "What a stupid, _shallow_ thing to think about! Emma is _dying,_" Regina couldn't hold back the agony as she admitted to her deepest fear. "Why aren't you doing something?"

"We've tried everything. I was just going to order us all back to town."

"You can't leave her to die! She's your daughter!"

"_I_ can't reach her! _You_ saw to that!"

"I can't bring it down! I tried!"

"Why did you try to escape?"

"I wasn't! It was a way through the barrier! You could see that!"

"And if it had collapsed with you in it?"

"At least I would have _tried_!" Regina screamed. "You send the fairies and even James is sporting scars now. But not you! You can't put your life on the line for your own child!"

"Don't you presume! You think you love her more than me? You don't know what love is!"

"I never got the chance to try!" Regina yelled back, her throat clogged by tears.

Silence fell between them as Snow's face registered surprise. Regina rolled away, hugging herself.

"She broke my toaster because of you."

"What on earth?" Regina straightened up, wincing briefly against the pain in her arm from the healing wounds and the pain in her back from laying in such an awkward position in the truck bed. "Snow, have you gone mad?"

"Not me. Maybe Emma did though. She never did tell me what Jefferson did to her when she found me."

"Jefferson hurt Emma?" Regina's body sparked with the energy of anger.

"He did something to her. I don't know. I kicked him out a window before he could really hurt her though."

"Good!" Regina's gaze narrowed. _If she got her hands on him..._

"He's the Mad Hatter though I don't think she believed that. She refused to the very end to believe anything in Henry's storybook was true."

"More fool she then." Regina sighed.

Snow became very quiet. She eased off the end of the tailgate smoothing her clothes before looking back up at Regina who studiously ignored her. Regina was finally letting go of the last images of taking off Jefferson's head herself when Snow spoke again.

"This is uncomfortable for me," Snow said, frowning. "There's a lot of... history between us, you and me. Things that can't be undone. I don't... I don't know that forgiveness though is as important as going forward." She glanced toward Emma and the car. Regina saw the anguish spread over the pixie face. "Emma should have _everything_ against you. Cursing us, cursing _her_ to spend 28 years alone in this world. These aren't mistakes you can simply make up for. The prophecy said she was supposed to end this, end you."

"I know," Regina said into the quiet space after Snow fell silent. The two women still could not bring themselves to look at one another, instead choosing to rest their gazes several dozen feet away, on the mangled remains of a yellow car and the blonde head just visible laying motionless atop it. Regina swallowed, squeezing her eyes shut briefly to quell the tears threatening to restart.

"She was leaving because she refused to kill you," Snow said.

Regina snapped her gaze to Snow's. "You're thinking I don't deserve mercy." _You'd be right_, she thought sadly.

"I think you don't." Something in Snow's eyes kept Regina's gaze ensnared and her tongue still. "But she's a better woman than I am," Snow finished with a wince.

Regina said nothing. She knew Emma was a better woman than she was. Was. Anguish squeezed at Regina's heart. Likely Emma was already dead. Even if they could get through the barrier, they might only be retrieving a body. She shook her head, trying to shake off the despair. She couldn't leave it like this. Emma had become so much to her. She frowned at Snow.

"What are you telling me?" Regina gripped the side of the truck as a way to brace her emotions as well as her body.

"I think Emma was in love with you long before today." Regina's jaw dropped. Snow looked to be picking her next words carefully. "Regina," the younger woman said quietly, "I think you're the only one who can get through the barrier."

Regina sneered. "I _tried_. That gallant you call a husband tackled me! I don't have any other ideas."

"Something happened when you touched the car," Snow said. "I saw it. You mentioned Emma's magic can protect you."

"Apparently not. You saw what happened," Regina doubted, her hands twisting around one another.

Snow did not answer. She turned away looking at James, then Emma, covered her mouth and looked off into the woods, clearly thinking. Finally she turned back to Regina. "I think you're the only one who can reach Emma for the same reason that James is the only one who can ever save me."

Her touch was tentative against Regina's hands. Regina looked down at Snow's fingers against hers, the pale delicate white against her darker olive complexion. Her left hand was unscarred, the right damaged and only partially healed. All too clearly, Regina remembered the pain. But was it possible to survive it?

Looking back up she found similar conflict in Snow's eyes. A willingness to do anything for her daughter warred with her distrust of Regina. Regina slid to out of the truck to stand next to Snow, knowing her eyes were almost begging for Snow to say what she hoped. For Emma.

Snow stepped even closer to Regina. Shorter, she looked up into Regina's face. Steadily green and brown met in a moment of visceral understanding. Snow's voice was tight and low. "Bring her to me."

Regina dipped her head and took a step back. Hands in her coat pockets and wincing at the pain still lancing through her right arm, she hurried to Emma's car. Gingerly she placed her hands against the curved roof, absorbing the gentle trickle of magical energy. After taking a deep breath, she slapped her body full length into the car's metal frame, resisting pulling away as Emma's magic flowed like whitewater rapids from the car into her body. The car rocked. Emma moaned. Exhaling and closing her eyes, Regina tucked her face into the upraised crook of her arm to protect it if possible. Then she threw her body into the barrier, sliding her back along the car as the rapacious barrier began to gnaw away.

The barrier reacted to Regina's intrusion with a sharp burst of light and a crackling opaque and visible wall of ferocious electrical energy. Though the woman was invisible to the eye, her screams of pain nonetheless could be heard by everyone present. Shivers coursed down every spine.

Then, abruptly, everything vanished. No screams. No rain.

No Regina.

No Emma.

No car.

The tow cable from James's truck and the winch cable from Michael's tow truck both clattered to the asphalt, the object they held having disappeared. The sudden void and the facts they presented made every heart stop and every ounce of blood freeze ice cold.

* * *

Regina continued screaming until her body impacted the edge of the roadway. The breath forced from her lungs, she bit her tongue. She tried to roll in the direction she hit but had to scramble for a handhold when she felt the mud and grass falling away from her fingers. Her hands wrapped around cold metal. She looked to see it was the front bumper of Emma's car. Flattened and twisted by the impact with the tree, it had sharp edges cutting into her palms. Her raincoat hung on her in tatters, blackened bits still clinging to parts of her arms and shoulders, a burnt smell of both flesh and clothes permeated the air. Newly opened wounds stung on her arms, chest, and face making it hard to concentrate. But with her feet dangling over the side of a ravine, she wasn't about to let go.

From her ground-level position, Regina stared back at the people assembled on the roadway. No one was moving. She'd never been on this side of the barrier. She noticed the rain had slowed to a faint mist here. Is this what they had looked like to anyone passing through the area for the last 28 years?

Pulling herself up onto the asphalt took some time and she winced with every movement of muscles torn by the magic, and yet she forced her body to obey the singular order to climb. As she laid her head against the rough surface to rest, she heard a groan and realized it wasn't hers. She lifted her head. "Emma?" she called.

Another groan. Regina rolled onto her back, looking up at the sky. She canted her head to take in what she could of the car looming beside her. Blonde hair was just visible over the curve of the door. She maneuvered herself to her knees, using the car sparingly.

After what felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes, Regina was on her feet standing, well leaning, next to Emma hanging out the window. She lightly stroked the soaking wet blonde hair, tracing the origins of two black-red half-dried trails of blood to jagged gashes in Emma's hairline, one at her ear and the other over her left temple. Both had stopped bleeding.

Passing the back of her damaged right hand across Emma's lips, Regina felt the warm wash of faint breaths. "Oh my god, thank you," she exhaled with relief, despite the pain of the faintly moving air against her ripped apart skin.

Emma moaned again, her lips parting around the sound.

"Shh, I'm going to figure this out," Regina said gently, tenderly tucking a lock of hair behind Emma's ear.

Regina wasn't tall enough to see into the car over the top to assess exactly how Emma was pinned. Twisting around though she found the front windshield was all but gone, jagged bits of glass sticking out from the frame.

Shedding her thoroughly torn coat, she wrapped the bits around her hands and smashed the shards out of her way. Leaning in over the dashboard she assessed the situation inside the car. Emma's seat had been moved out of position by the force of Emma's body during the crash. But it hadn't fully separated. Emma's legs were pinned between the crushed in steering column and seat. She had angled out over the window trying to climb out. To free her they'd have to start with Emma's right leg which was twisted awkwardly and the knee was probably broken. But if Regina could create some space, the blonde might be able to wriggle free.

The back seat was entirely on the Storybrooke side of the barrier so there would be no getting behind Emma to make the attempt. Regina wrestled herself inside the front windshield and twisted around in the passenger seat to look up at Emma's body hanging through the door.

Emma still wore her red jacket, and her jeans to the knees were covered in blood. Regina stretched up and wrestled with the back of Emma's seat. Blood from her own hands smeared on the leather, but it shifted a bit more with each shove.

Gingerly Regina grabbed the lower half of Emma's trapped leg and tried dislodging it. The pain woke Emma with a sharp scream and she jerked instinctively away from it. Her leg slipped from Regina's hand, and her boot caught Regina sharply in the face. Tears in her eyes as she absorbed the pain, Regina blindly grabbed for Emma's foot to stop it.

The jostling shook the car. Regina squeezed the foot in her hand and tried to hold very still.

After she was sure of no further metal stressing, Regina, still clenching Emma's foot, asked, "Emma?"

"Regina?" Emma sounded completely scared.

Calmly Regina said, "Please don't kick again."

"What's wrong?" Emma asked. Regina still heard the fear, but it was tempered.

"We're about three inches from going over into the ravine."

Emma didn't respond for the longest time. Finally she whispered, "Why are you here?"

Regina laid her forehead gingerly against the back of the jean-clad leg in her arms, hugging it as she could not hug its owner. "Rescuing you."

There was another long silence. Regina was so afraid Emma had passed out she looked up the leg, contemplating a tiny shift just to get a reaction. Abruptly Emma spoke. "So, any ideas how we get out of this?"

Regina considered their surroundings. "Maybe it would be easier to get back down into the car than crawl out that way?"

Emma wriggled, grunted and groaned, biting off the occasional scream as she jostled her broken right leg. Regina was surprised when the woman suddenly and solidly dropped into her, shoving them both against the passenger door which was the bottom of the car at the moment.

"Ow!"

"Unf. Gravity works. Shit."

An elbow connected with the top of Regina's head, causing tears and stars. She squirmed to relieve the pressure of the door handle digging into her back. Immediately after that though she wrapped her arms around the blonde woman who was trying to move away. The woman's weight was welcome and warm in her grasp as they lay panting on their sides against the passenger door.

Absorbing the contact and trying to slow her breathing and calm herself, Regina closed her eyes. Emma continued moving her hands over Regina's form trying to find purchase against the car. The touch was tentative but at the same time such a relief, Regina was startled when a hand grabbed at an open sore. Emma's grip hesitated, registering the damage to them. The touch skated up Regina's arm, finding more sores. "What happened to you?" Emma asked.

"I had to come through the barrier to get you." Thankfully for their positions, and the darkness of the night, there was no way Emma could scrutinize the injuries. Besides there was nothing to be done. Even if magic could heal them somewhat that was neither here nor there right now. Regina looked up into Emma's eyes, noticing her pupils were uneven. The thought Emma had a concussion was also worrisome, but that wouldn't help them now.

"Now, _Sheriff_," she offered with a light tease to her voice. God, it was good to see Emma and feel her in her arms. "The first order of business is getting out of this car without going over the ravine."

"Through the windshield?" Emma suggested; though in shadow, her face held a lopsided grimace.

"Sounds like a plan." Regina guided Emma's exit with a hand on the blonde's hip or behind a calf. Emma wobbled, even on her hands and knees as she was, clearly off-balance due to her head injury. But despite the uselessness of her right leg, which did indeed seem to have been twisted and broken at the knee, the blonde finally had dragged herself through the windshield, rolling out onto the asphalt gasping for breath. No one said it would be easy.

"Now you," Emma said from her position laying on her back on the roadway. Regina planted her hands on the side of the windshield frame, feeling bits of glass biting into her palms. But the pain had become such a constant companion the actual increase in discomfort was minimal.

Slithering on her belly through the open windshield, Regina kicked at the metal frame of the car to move forward the last few inches until she could plant her hands on the asphalt. The car shifted, and started to slide once again.

"Emma!" Regina reached out; Emma reached back, catching hold of Regina's hands as her body slid completely free of the car moving away.

Shoulder muscles straining, Emma hauled Regina into her body and they both watched the car disappear over the edge of the ravine. The cacophonous noise of metal crashing repeatedly into rock, tearing, twisting and scraping, filled the air for several minutes.

The women heard it crash into trees, limbs breaking with disturbing snaps, and finally a thump as the wreck hit bottom. The adrenaline that rushed in at the fear of being part of that crumbling mess left Regina a crying puddle as it drained away. Emma winced at the strain in her back and neck – probably whiplash – but pulled Regina against her, wrapping her arms tightly around the brunette woman as she too was drowned in the emotional onslaught of almost-disaster.

"You always did hate my car," Emma murmured into Regina's hairline as tears streamed down her face.


	7. Chapter 7

_Disclaimers on part 1_

_**Author's Note:**_ _I want to thank everyone who has favorited, followed, or reviewed this story to date! I hope that this story continues to interest and intrigue you, as it has me, in the unfolding. In this part, some questions are answered, and some new questions are raised as Emma and Regina have their first real moments together since the chess game... and what came after. Not all is happiness and light in the world of Swan Queen._

_Thanks to Laura D for beta reading!_

**Your Move Part 7 **  
by LZClotho

Emma had slept in many uncomfortable places, positions, and situations over her lifetime. The asphalt of a roadway had to be the most impossible. Her back was soaked and cold; her face felt wind-blasted and the skin stiff, as if it might crack any second. Twitching her right foot sent pain all the way up her leg into her gut which gave a stomach-wrenching twist that made her want to throw up, and it was this notion that made her open her eyes to the pre-dawn light.

Snuggled against Emma's left side, Regina's dark head lay against her shoulder. A hand gently rested on Emma's rising and falling chest. The events of the last twenty four hours played through Emma's memory like a jerky home movie.

She bit her lip and rolled onto her side careful not to do more than shift Regina carefully down so she could see the woman's face and examine the injuries she had only vaguely identified in the shadows of night. Emma winced as her fingertips neared what appeared to be a ruptured boil on the outside of a muscular forearm. Several more boils and bone deep lacerations that reminded Emma of dog bites were evident up Regina's arm all the way to the shoulder. Charred fabric appeared to be embedded in some as well. The woman's legs, though front more than back, also seemed to have suffered similar attacks. _What the hell did this to you? _she asked the silently sleeping woman, lifting a lock of her brunette hair from her forehead and stroking it back behind her ear.

_I had to come through the barrier to get you_, Regina had said.

Emma never had considered the barrier, not really. From the beginning, Henry had said she was the only one who could pass through it. He had constantly warned that bad things would happen to the other Storybrooke residents if they tried. She'd humored him but had never seen evidence to support his claim. The night she'd tried to run with him in the car, slipping off the road had been caused by him grabbing the wheel. No mystery there. But then she remembered the weird way the wheel had jerked in her hand before this crash. As if phantom hands had seized it.

She studied the woman in her lap as a discordant chorus of questions filled her brain. Why had Regina come after her? How had Regina known she had crashed? If the curse had truly broken, why was there still a barrier? Was this another case, like August's wooden leg, of Emma's curse-immunity leaving her unable to see what was right in front of everyone else's faces? But she believed now, didn't she? That's how she'd been able to finally see August turn completely to wood, fight a dragon, save Henry with a kiss...

Okay. To avoid the headache that was creeping up the back of her head about to make her brain explode, Emma decided to accept there was a barrier. And she and Regina were now outside it.

"Regina." Despite the low tone, her voice carried and echoed slightly in the Maine morning stillness. Something in the underbrush west of the roadway scurried away from the sound. Reflexively, protectively, Emma grasped Regina's shoulder.

The brunette moaned in pain at the contact to her sores and jerked awake. "Emma?"

"I'm here. We seem to be alone in the middle of the road leading out of town."

"I remember." Regina's tone was dry. Slender fingers slipped over Emma's and Emma's gaze trailed up the brunette woman's damaged arm to the dark brown eyes searching her face. "Are you all right?" Regina asked. When Emma nodded, Regina said, "We'd better get back to town, get someone to set your leg."

"You got out of there. Why didn't you keep running?"

"You were hurt."

"So, thanks for the help. I'll go back on my own. You should go before someone comes."

"No one else can come, Emma. No one else can get through the barrier."

"No?"

"No."

Entrapped by the concern in caramel eyes, Emma could only nod as her eyes filled with tears. Dropping her chin, she picked at the blood encrusted in her jeans to hide this feeling of coming apart at the seams. She didn't even really understand why she was so disconsolate, but she couldn't look at Regina.

A hand slipped under her chin, lifting it. Regina searched her face. "Emma?"

Emma tried to pull away, to push onto her knees, biting her lip to keep from crying out as she felt the pull in her back and broken leg. She turned herself away so she didn't have to see Regina leaning on her hands on the pavement, eyes soft with emotions Emma wanted no part in naming.

"It was just sex, Regina." _No it wasn't_, a rebellious voice in her head retorted. Regina said nothing. Emma looked down the road in the direction she knew lay the interstate highway. She wrestled herself onto her good leg, dragging the broken one. Regina was suddenly there, moving under her right shoulder, a human crutch, keeping the weight off her busted knee.

"You can run again once you're better," Regina said. "Let's get you into town to set that leg."

Reluctantly Emma put her right arm around Regina's shoulder to steady herself as the brunette put an arm around her waist.

"I saw you," Regina said, her voice so quiet Emma almost questioned there had been words at all. "I saw you leaving," Regina said, and her voice was stronger. Emma took it for hurt and accusation.

"I tried not to wake you when I put you to bed." _Here it comes_, Emma thought, the morning-after conversation she never liked doing.

"No. Emma, I saw you _out here_on the road. Saw the crash."

That wasn't the direction these conversations took. Confused, Emma asked, "How? Last I checked, Storybrooke doesn't have a traffic camera system."

Rolling her eyes, Regina shook her head. But then she smiled and looked up at Emma. "Magic."

Emma did not smile back. She remembered thinking of the possibility when struggling to get out of her uniform at the Sheriff's station. _So it was true!_ Her rage blossomed red hot. She shoved Regina away even as the woman tried to hold onto her. The brunette stumbled, nearly toppling them both. "You lied to me. You _do_have magic!"

"I never!" Regina pulled away from Emma, her expression broken with pain. Emma stumbled from the weight bearing suddenly demanded of her damaged knee. They both fell to the ground, Emma still screaming.

"Fuck! Regina, you _fucked _me!"

Regina dragged herself out of Emma's reach. With her broken leg, Emma couldn't follow her physically, but her words were no less damaging blows.

"You used me. I defended you to my parents! The ones I've been waiting to find all my life! The ones you took away from me!"

Regina wrapped her arms tightly around her knees, accepting Emma's rant as tears rolled down her own face.

"Damn you!" Red-faced and breathing hard, Emma finally cut off her tirade and lunged for Regina. "Say something!"

"I never meant to hurt you."

"Hurt me? You've been lying to me, to everyone! You have magic! You played the damsel in distress so... Fuck, and I fell for it!"

"I never lied! To you, or anyone!"

Emma yelled over her as if she hadn't even spoken. "Why lie to me about the magic? Did you think I wouldn't protect you any other way? I told you good people -"

"Listen to me! I wasn't lying! I don't have my magic." Regina blew out her breath as she finished.

"You just said you found me with magic-" Emma shook Regina fiercely by the shoulders. Though her fingers dug into Regina's open sores, the brunette didn't make a sound and she didn't pull away.

"It's not my magic!" she insisted.

"Your majesty is a liar," Emma said, and she might as well have said "bitch."

"After everything..." Regina looked down at her hands, turning them over and back again, then she lifted her gaze once more. Caramel-colored eyes darted back and forth between Emma's. "I swear to you... on Henry's life, Emma, I have not been lying to you. About _anything_."

"Then how did you see me out here on the road? You didn't drive out here. I saw no one here when I crashed."

"Actually I did, but that was later."

Emma blew out a frustrated breath. She looked around obviously pointing out in the silence that there was no other car. "You're lying."

"I swear. The magic used was not my magic. It was _your_magic." Her voice trailed to silence as she turned her face away.

"I don't have any magic," Emma stated with a firm emphasis on each word.

"You do." Regina grasped Emma's hand. She felt the skin tingle and slowly a wisp of... something drifted from Emma's skin, like smoke from her pores, and writhed snake-like around Regina's wrist. Her heart beat a little faster. Regina spoke quietly as they both watched their hands. "At the house. You left some... in the chess pieces... Your glass."

The smoke expanded becoming a cloud obscuring her hands and Regina's wrist; the brunette winced and closed her eyes. "What the hell are you doing?" Emma demanded.

"I'm guiding it, but it's not mine. Can't you feel it reaching back... into your chest, pulling at you?"

Having been focused on the smoke, Emma was about to shake her head when suddenly Regina's hand dropped hers and the woman fell backward gasping in pain. Emma did feel a tug then, like something was trying to pull her heart out using several strings. She clutched her chest and gasped. The sensation stopped.

"What the fuck did you do?"

"I'm sorry. It hurt."

"Yeah, fuck it hurt. What did you do?" Emma demanded an explanation.

"My injuries. They tried to absorb... too fast."

"Or you could've been trying to rip my heart out." Emma gave an exasperated huff.

"Damn it, Emma, would you stop running scared for just one minute and listen to me?" Regina gathered herself following her yell, closing her eyes briefly. When she opened them and spoke again, her voice seemed drawn slowly from a well of calm. Emma recognized it as Regina's mothering voice, which she'd often heard used on Henry.

"Somehow... don't ask me how, I honestly don't know... When we had..." She gestured between them and looked uncomfortable as she clearly searched for a way to describe what they had done. "Sex," she finally said, though she looked frustrated with the choice. "I became able to tap your magic. I know it's yours because my glass – and the pieces _I _touched - are void. It's not unusual for a novice at magic to leave... bits laying around. I used to accidentally change parts of my hair from red to black every time I finger-combed it." Regina laughed at the memory.

Whatever anger Emma had drained away with the sound of that laughter. She had never heard a more beautiful sound in her life. The evident honesty in the memory, the genuineness of the sound squashed Emma's every doubt. In wonder she blurted, "I really have magic?"

"I don't exactly know _why _you have magic," Regina said with a serious tone. "Neither of your parents do. It may be, like Rumple said, because you're the product of True Love."

That again. Emma took a deep breath, "Can't we just go back to the days when I was an interloping deputy in a small town who kept pissing off the mayor while we fought over our kid?" She found herself seeking out Regina's hands, studying them, remembering their touch upon her body.

Smoky wisps appeared again and this time Emma could feel them, like threads seeping from her heart. They curled – was she really directing them? – around Regina's lower arm. A particularly vicious tear on the woman's forearm rippled and closed. Although the skin was not unblemished, as the sensation and the smoke receded, Emma accepted that, yes, she had just healed Regina. With her own magic.

She looked up to find Regina had been studying her face. "Thank you," the brunette said.

"What do we do now?"

"We go back into town to get someone to set your leg." Regina lifted Emma's right arm and settled herself underneath it, again acting the crutch. Emma settled her arm once again on Regina's shoulder, and the brunette settled her arm strongly across the back of Emma's waist.

Several shuffling steps later, Emma felt a tingle start at her head and travel down with her forward step to her feet. As the sensation passed, she glanced to look at Regina, who was looking at her. "You felt that?"

"Must have been the barrier. After all no one seems to suffer ill effects entering Storybrooke," Regina said.

"Yet it nearly ate you alive when you tried to leave. Magic is such a bitch."

Regina laughed as she repositioned herself and they started shuffling forward again. It was then she blurted, "Wait, where is everyone?"

The roadway on which they stood, supposedly inside the town limits of Storybrooke, was notably very empty.

"Everyone?"

"When I left to get you, there was Snow, James, The Blue Fairy, even Grumpy, Sneezy, and Michael Tillman. I can't believe they'd just abandon you." She frowned. "Why would they take my car? I haven't been gone that long."

Emma reached into her pocket, pulling out her cell phone. "Well, let's see, maybe I can call... Nope, no bars. Power's low though, so..."

"We keep walking." With Regina settling into position under Emma's shoulder once more, Emma concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.


	8. Chapter 8

_Disclaimers on part 1_

_Author's Note: Yes, the parts are coming more quickly now. Thank you to everyone who has favorited, followed, and reviewed. Your enthusiasm for the story keeps me writing. And much thanks to my beta, Laura D for raising the questions that help me keep this mystery on track!_

**Your Move part 8**  
by LZClotho

Fifteen minutes later when a healthy walk would have taken the women a good mile and firmly into town, Regina and Emma had barely traversed a half mile in their shared shuffle. Weighing heavily on Regina's shoulder, Emma made them stop.

"This is ridiculous," she said, as Regina let her go against a tree set just off the road. She used it to sink to the ground, easing her right leg out with both hands as she inched down the tree's trunk. "If I've got magic let's use it. Maybe I can zap us there -" She lifted her hand and made as if to snap her fingers. Regina intercepted the action, grabbing her hand. "- or whatever," Emma finished.

Regina shook her head and crouched next to the blonde. "_Or whatever _could kill you. Full body transport is draining even on experienced magic users, and you're barely on your feet as it is."

"You have any better ideas?" Emma winced as she grasped her right pant leg on either side of her knee using it sling-like to move her right leg to another position. "My phone is still not working, and we need help sooner rather than later. We can't continue shuffling along. You can't bear my weight indefinitely and fatigue will make one of us careless."

"Are you in a lot of pain?" Regina asked. "How's your head?" She searched Emma's eyes for signs of the concussion that had been hinted at earlier. Emma's pupils seemed more responsive, but Regina was no expert in head trauma.

Emma shrugged, wincing as her back and other body aches made themselves known. Even biting her lip couldn't silence the high-pitched whine of her agony.

Regina bit her lip but then decided Emma needed the option. "Maybe a pain block wouldn't be too hard to do."

"What's that?"

"A magic user's version of aspirin," Regina explained. "Mostly meditation, akin to this world's biofeedback, but with actual magic flowing through you, it's even more effective."

"It can't be too difficult. After all, just thinking about it, I mended that gash in your arm." Emma gestured to the scarred skin.

"That was beginner's luck," Regina said wryly. "Don't think I'm not grateful, but I'd rather play it safe with your magic until we know how it will behave here."

"It's ironic that I got magic, when I didn't have it before, and you didn't, when you did." Emma frowned. "That made a lot more sense in my head before I said it."

"That's the concussion talking." Regina exhaled and sat down fully on the ground. "The pain block is even easier than what you did for my arm, so, if you want to try it?"

"Anything will help. If I keep walking right now I'm pretty sure I'll throw up."

"All right. Now, get comfortable."

Emma held her arms wide indicating her current position. "This is as good as it gets."

"Don't think about your entire body, just the knee. You ever take a biology class?"

"You mean do I know what the muscles, bones and tendons look like? Yeah."

Regina wondered if that was from classroom or practical experience. "All right, try to picture your knee. You're going to pinpoint the specific points of pain only. See if you can isolate them. Close your eyes."

Emma fidgeted as she followed directions. Regina watched her and it was clear when the woman continued to shift and flex her hands and arms that meditation was not a familiar activity for the very active blonde. She touched Emma's hand and the woman jumped, a scream about the pain in her body accompanying the sudden movement.

"I'm sorry."

"Fuck! Regina," Emma gasped for breath around the pain, tears leaked out from beneath her tightly shut eyelids.

"You need to relax. Have you done meditation before?" she asked, suspecting the answer.

"No."

Regina wiped the tears from Emma's face. "I'm sorry. I should have let you go. After all that time pushing you to leave, trying to drive you away from Henry, and when you finally do, I hold on too tight and this happens."

Emma's eyes opened, the green swirling inches away from Regina's gaze. "You didn't cause the accident."

"Actually," Regina admits, "I'm pretty sure I did."

Emma's eyes narrowed. "How so?"

"I saw you out here driving away and I wanted you to stop so much I screamed."

"And you think that made my car crash?"

"It did."

"Maybe," Emma seemed willing to allow the explanation. "But like you said, magic is unpredictable. So, you couldn't predict this would happen. You didn't do this on purpose. Not like when you tried to poison me with the turnover."

Regina pulled away from Emma. They were never going to get away from that. She should have known better. Even trying to make up for her wrongs was never going to be enough. The list was just too long, each individual item too damning. "You're right. Obviously this was a mistake. I'll go to town, turn myself in, and have them send someone out to get you."

On her feet walking away, Regina was stopped by Emma's call, "Regina! Wait!"

Emma was half-rolled and pushing up on her hands when Regina turned back. "Stop!" When Regina didn't move, Emma eased herself back down. "Help me fix my leg," she said. "Please?"

"You can't relax your guard with me around," Regina said.

"I won't relax if you're not here either, so you might as well talk me through this," Emma replied with a grimace. The green eyes gave nothing away, but Regina felt a little of the tension ease between them.

"You don't think I'll come back for you." She turned her gaze away; Emma didn't want her feelings, so she wouldn't show them to her. "You don't trust me."

"I don't trust many people, Regina." Emma patted the ground next to her. "So, teach me to do this, and we can get to town sooner rather than later?"

Regina knelt beside Emma, keeping her hands on her own knees. Emma tilted her head back, resting against the tree.

"So, focus on the specific pain, right?" Emma closed her eyes.

"Yes. Now, you have to relax. Let your knee take shape in your mind as you clear out everything else." Lowering her voice gradually with each of her words, Regina slowly guided Emma toward a meditative state. "Nothing else is there. Just your knee."

She shifted around behind Emma using the tree to keep her distance, but close enough she could intervene if Emma's magic went out of control.

She lifted her voice toward the blonde. "Now, with each breath you take in, your magic is filling your lungs, just like the air. As you exhale, the pain is leaving with it." She watched Emma's legs slowly become surrounded by a faint white glow. Her magic. It didn't stay contained, as unfocused as Emma was, her exhaustion was letting it encompass her entire body.

Emma's golden hair glowed, so long it almost touched her waist front and back with luxurious curls, and the healthy beauty of her toned face grew gradually more luminous. The sight was almost too beautiful. Regina felt tears heat behind her eyes. She whispered the last instructions, hoping to hide her emotions from the woman who seemingly didn't want them.

"Inhale, focus the magic. Exhale, shed the pain. Inhale magic. Exhale pain. Inhale. Exhale. In. Out." She watched Emma's chest rise and fall with her breaths, and the magic light surrounding her pulsed to the same rhythm.

Emma's hands released their fists, relaxing open palmed on her right thigh. Her shoulders, tensed from hours of resisting the pain, now rounded and slumped. The strain gradually receded from around the blonde's eyes and mouth, releasing the muscles into the faintest smile of contentment.

The air crackled with Emma's magic. Unable to resist, Regina reached out and tangled her fingers through it; it touched her skin, akin to a lover's caress. Then it floated away, leaving her bereft.

Emma's head lolled and she fell asleep as her magic finished its work. Regina settled to the ground a few feet away to await her natural awakening and succumbed to her own exhaustion.

* * *

The first thing Emma noticed was the sun's heat on her face. Despite the canopy of trees she could tell the sun was almost directly overhead. Sometime in the last few hours of her nap, she'd shifted to lie on the ground. Lifting her arms to shield her eyes, she noted her arms and back no longer ached. The sharp pain in her knee and the accompanying throb in her leg muscles had also vanished.

Regina had said the magic would only block the pain, but the way Emma felt she wondered if the magic hadn't done a bit more. She gingerly prodded the damaged joint and felt twinges that said, oh yes, it was still broken.

She pulled her phone from her pocket, smacking it when it still didn't register any reception bars. She turned it off, then back on, studying the screen again. No joy. She was really beginning to have a bad feeling about this. She looked around, searching for a stout fallen limb. Dragging herself toward one she saw a few feet out of reach, the dead, dried leaves covering the forest floor and dirt scraped her belly.

The noise awakened Regina."How's the pain?"

Emma rolled onto her side, preparing to stand with the thick limb she had found. "I'm good." She watched Regina push to her feet, dusting fallen leaves and dirt from her legs. She dusted her fingers through her hair in an effort to straighten it, and the act reminded Emma of Regina's comment about accidentally changing her hair color. "You spend a lot of time learning magic?" she asked.

"Years. The pain block one was only the first of many."

"You break a leg too?"

Regina shook her head. "No. Foolishly I thought it could heal something else."

"Not a simple pain, huh?" Emma said with surprising insight.

Regina hugged her arms around her torso, cupping her elbows in her hands, and turned away, looking at their location in the forest. "You ready to start walking again?" she asked.

"Yeah." Emma pushed to her feet, adjusted the stick under her shoulder and tested it out. "All right. Let's make some time."

Neither woman spoke as they walked alongside one another down the middle of the northbound lane. About twenty minutes later, they rounded a curve, coming over a hill, and sighted the first building, a house in one of Storybrooke's neighborhoods. The interior was dark, curtains closed. A current model brown full-size sedan sat under a vine-covered trellis. The mailbox reported the address as 14510 Briar Street. As Emma leaned on the step railing, Regina walked up and buzzed the front doorbell.

After a few moments with no response, Regina rapped sharply on the door. "Hello?"

"Might be at work," Emma suggested. "It is the middle of the day."

"Maybe we could just use their phone," Regina said, trying the doorknob.

"Should we really be breaking and entering?"

"You're the sheriff," Regina said.

"All right. But, let me do it." Emma negotiated the steps one at a time and examined the door for a moment. Then she stretched and felt along the top of the jamb, coming away with a key. "Predictable." She turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door. "After you."

Inside, as Regina was letting her eyes adjust to the darkness, Emma found a light switch. Regina blinked, and heard Emma's gasp of surprise just barely over her own.

Every single surface in the place was covered in dust, at least an inch thick, and cobwebs adorned the lighting fixtures and corners of the front room. Emma pushed a finger through the dust on a table near where she stood. "What the hell? Doesn't look like anyone's lived here in forever."

"But the car outside is only a few years old."

Emma leaned through an archway looking into the room beyond. "Kitchen's the same story," she reported. "Though the appliances seem to be drawing power."

"Maybe the phone works." Regina lifted the receiver on the phone she noticed on the wall. She got a dial tone. Quickly she punched up the number for the Sheriff's office. "No answer at the sheriff's office. I'll try city hall," she added, pressing another sequence of numbers and putting it to her ear. The familiar switchboard recording of city hall's front desk sounded in her ear. She entered the extension to her office, listening as it rang through.

_Voicemail?_She put the receiver back on the phone cradle. Emma looked at her with a question clear in her gaze. "No answer," Regina reported.

"Well, let's borrow the car. I'll return it on my rounds later."

"All right." Regina said, feeling subdued. She followed Emma back outside, watching the woman lock up and replace the key over the door.

"Help me look around for a car key," Emma said as she opened the car door and pushed herself inside, getting settled. She fished under the mat and under the seat, then over the visor. "Check the wheel well."

Regina gingerly reached under the front wheel well only to feel something furry. She yanked her hand back just as she heard a hiss and saw a mangy orange tabby cat burst from beneath the car. She swore, still shaking her hand. Emma laughed. She glowered at the blonde.

"You all right?" Emma asked after calming herself.

"I suppose so," Regina replied. "No key," she reported.

"All right, get in."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm going to hotwire it. Get in." Emma was already contorting herself to reach under the car's dash.

Regina walked around and opened the passenger door. Before getting in, she asked, "Another of your dubiously acquired skills, Miss Swan?"

"There we go. That's the Regina I know. Get in the car." Emma was grimacing, her body positioned at what appeared to be an awkward angle. She smiled as the engine rumbled to life. Regina stared at the hood of the car as Emma twisted the wires together before she sat back, putting her hands on the wheel.

"Seatbelt," Regina said automatically as she reached for her own.

Emma rolled her eyes but did reach over her shoulder and pull the seatbelt out and down across her lap and chest, snapping it into place.

* * *

Ten minutes later Emma pulled the car to a stop at a traffic light blinking yellow in all four directions. She and Regina stepped out, looking around at the shop fronts and office windows of Main Street. Though there were a few cars in the street's parking spaces, every single office, every single business, was dark, empty. Not a single person strolled the sidewalk, despite the fact it was noon and people should be finding reasons to search for lunch. The place was so silent Emma popped her ears just to be sure.

"Granny's," she said and got back in the car. Regina slid in the other side, looking shell-shocked. The brunette put a hand on the car's dash as Emma drove slowly along the two blocks north toward Granny's Diner. Debris increased in the roadway and Emma focused on safely moving around it as they continued.

The drive took them past City Hall. Regina gasped. Emma hit the brakes, following Regina's gaze out her window. Neither woman could find words, just staring at the sight.

Every last one of Storybrooke City Hall's windows were broken, the entirety of the building covered in black-green vines. The vines originated from a gaping gash in the street out of which had erupted a redwood-sized plant, its hundreds of offshoots all snaked toward the civic building.

Whatever had happened, hadn't happened instantaneously, Emma realized, seeing the signs of an emergency aid station set up under an event tent in the building's front lawn. "Where is everybody?" Emma asked aloud, hearing the bewilderment in her own voice.

Regina asked, her voice laden with worry, "Where is Henry?"


	9. Chapter 9

_****Disclaimers on part 1._

_**Author's Note:** Emma and Regina (and I) are so grateful for all the followers, favorites, and reviews you all have showered me with on this story. It makes them (and me) quite pleased to be part of the Swan Queen community. _

_**This part:** So, what the heck is going on? Here we have a few more clues, and Emma discovers something shocking. _

**Your Move part 9**

**by LZClotho**

"It's been a month since the curse broke," Emma said. "We know magic made these kinds of messes in the beginning, but it had been relatively quiet. Any idea what might have set off something more recent?" She looked up at Regina bringing what she hoped was coffee. Needing someplace to sit, the women had settled into a booth at Granny's Diner. Emma rested her right leg on the bench beside her and watched as Regina slid onto the opposite bench.

Placing the two steaming mugs on the table, Regina said, "I found some beans in the freezer. I did taste it. It's drinkable but, even frozen, the beans were clearly well beyond any use-by date."

"So a lot of time has passed. The layer of dust confirms that, too. But, any guess how _much_ time?" Emma pulled her mug closer, curling a finger through the small loop on the side.

"Granny's ledgers are current to the day we left Storybrooke." Regina sipped from her coffee, giving a wry twist of the lips. "There are no records dated later."

"That could just be the last time she had to update the books. Any sign of something else, like a desk calendar?" Emma sipped the coffee, finding it about equal to some convenience store brews she'd had over the years. As Regina had said, drinkable. But as she felt the effects of caffeine infusion, her mind settled just a touch. It almost felt normal.

"No, but I would have no way of knowing whether she kept one or not."

Emma threshed her fingers through her hair before she voiced her crazy-sounding thoughts. _But what the hell at this point, the whole thing was crazy, right?_ "I can't believe I'm gonna say this but... Is it possible we stepped through some sort of time shift when we came back through the barrier?"

"That wasn't part of its original traits, but anything's possible since magic is unpredictable here."

"I've never dealt with a disaster on this scale," Emma admitted. "How do we even start to figure out what happened to more than ten thousand people? Is everyone really gone? Where did they go? It obviously didn't take place instantly. Otherwise why the signs that some sort of emergency planning and services were put into play?"

She was focused on Regina's hands, slipping around her mug, or she might have missed it. Regina lifted her cup slowly, carefully holding her arm out from her body after a brief touchdown of her elbow on the table. Emma realized the surface was damp, and then saw the drips from Regina's elbow. She looked more intently and realized, "Your wounds are open." The fluid wasn't blood but a semi-clear pus.

"Why didn't you say something?" Emma grabbed Regina's arm carefully, taking the coffee mug away and turning the forearm gingerly to see the elbow more closely.

Regina gingerly turned her shoulder and removed Emma's hand from her arm. "Nothing to be done."

"But aren't you in pain?" Trying to shrug it off resulted in a wince which Emma saw. She also saw just how washed out the brunette was looking. _How in the hell did the woman not just collapse from pain?_ Her face was almost white and her eyes pinched. _Damn._ Emma started to her feet. "Ruby kept a first aid kit under the bar."

It was a weak motion, but Regina's hand landed on hers on the table and the sinewy fingers squeezed Emma's. "Fine. I'll get it."

Regina moved out of the booth and across the diner, stepping behind the bar. The brunette bent out of sight and Emma heard the sounds of things being moved around. Finally Regina emerged with a large white box with a fat red plus sign on it.

"Get over here," Emma demanded, moving her leg and feeling the twinges suggesting her pain block was wearing off. _Four hours_, she thought with a roll of her eyes, _just like damned aspirin_.

"What's wrong?" Regina asked.

"Whether we use magic or not, we're going to have to go to ground somewhere and both heal a bit. We certainly can't search homes or buildings for other people in our present conditions. Let's take all this up to Granny's rooms. I'll bandage your wounds and wrap my knee. We'll get some shut eye. It's gonna be dark soon anyway."

"We need food," Regina said.

"Any possibilities in the freezer?" Emma asked.

"Frozen is unlikely to be useful. But I can check through the canned goods."

"Don't bomb shelters use canned?"

"Yes. If the cans aren't rusted or compromised, their contents should be edible," Regina said.

"Scrounge up a few of the most likely candidates."

"All right." Regina started back to her feet.

"Wait." Emma almost slapped her forehead. "Getting ahead of myself. Let me wrap your elbows first." She popped open the kit and pulled out gauze still sealed in plastic and a seal foil packet of antibiotic ointment. "This isn't going to cover everything. We're going to have to find another supply."

Regina hissed at the application of the ointment, but said nothing as Emma pressed clean gauze over her elbow and secured it with medical tape.

Emma's fingers accidentally skimmed another open rip - one of the dog-like tears in Regina's forearm, and she apologized. "I really should use a little healing magic again, don't you think?" Regina shook her head and rose without another word, disappearing into the kitchen.

_Stubbornness, thy name is Regina Mills_.

Emma shook her head. Some would probably say the same about her. Mulling over what might be behind Regina's insistence that nothing be done for her injuries, Emma pulled the elastic support bandage from the first aid kit planning to use it to wrap her knee for additional stability. Unfortunately, there wasn't any elasticity and the fabric fell apart into decrepit bits in her hands, worse than 5,000 year old mummy cloth.

_What the _hell _is going on?_

Emma wanted another look at the vines at city hall and the hole through which it had erupted. She was certain there were clues there. But they couldn't do much reconnaissance with her busted knee or Regina's open sores.

Magic seemed their only solution. She'd healed one of Regina's sores, and managed a pain block. Both actions had felt strange at first but then, when she just accepted what she was doing, the process had worked. Not a person who generally made leaps of faith or who particularly believed herself capable of much, Emma realized this situation was demanding she do exactly that.

Impatiently she waited for Regina's return. Time for immovable object to meet irresistible force. She must convince Regina to teach her more magic.

* * *

Regina found the makings for a stew, using the canned goods she could salvage from Granny's shelves. Many of the cans had rusted, suggesting water intrusion, and she realized that at some point the area had flooded, finally identifying a stain about hip height all around the walls as a water line. Had Storybrooke's residents fled the flooding and found a way out of the barrier? Even if it struck quickly, there had to be some reason they hadn't found bodies.

_Why was there still power?_ she thought as she sparked the pilot light for the gas stove. It had obviously been intermittent at some point because the refrigerator in the home they'd entered had clearly failed at some point, causing all the spoilage she'd seen. Regina shivered at the memory of the disgusting array of mold and mildew which had stunk like few things she had ever smelled in her life, in either world.

As she began to move with the remembered simplicity of cooking a meal, Regina tried to find a peaceful thought amid the ones hammering at her brain for her attention. Her mind drifted to Emma. In the span of twenty-four hours she had made love with the woman, nearly killed her with magic, forced her way through the barrier to rescue her, and discovered they seemed to be the only two living people in Storybrooke.

Regina had balked at Emma's insistence that what they'd shared was just sex. Upon finding herself alone in her bed afterward, Regina had acknowledged that neither of them used that emotion much when it came to sexual encounters. Emma had a history of one-night stands and Regina had either always been on the giving or receiving end of the act as a display of power. Then why was it so natural, almost a given, to think that what she and Emma had done was not merely sex?

Even as accustomed as she was to masking her emotions, Regina knew the answer. With Emma, she had lost the mask and become completely unguarded and vulnerable. She had to believe the sex had meant something to Emma because it had meant something to her. Having now felt Emma's magic flow through her when she knew what it felt like, from the chess piece and then from the car, she knew she'd experienced Emma's magic when they made love.

Emma's magic source was her heart, her blood which literally ran with the essence of true love; Regina had seen its threads and felt its touch directly just the once when Emma healed her one sore. Knowing Emma didn't love her, submitting to more healing would just be a journey in emotional pain for Regina. Emma might think it was just a snap of her fingers or a thought, but Regina understood the nature of magic – of Emma's magic – and she couldn't subject herself to it again. Just feeling the wisps of it in the forest after Emma fell asleep had brought tears to her eyes. To sense it, to touch it, and to know it wasn't hers, she was certain her own heart would tear apart in the process, as love always had ripped through Regina's soul, leaving it exposed and bleeding.

But Emma was becoming more insistent, Regina thought, fingering the bandage around her elbow. The blonde was right. Without proper treatment, her wounds would become infected. Without proper setting, Emma's leg wouldn't heal well, if at all. She remembered when Henry had broken his thumb throwing and catching a baseball against the side of the house. He'd refused to let her take him to the hospital. After a week unattended, the small bones had set wrong and had to be rebroken when she finally overruled his objections and took him to Dr. Whale anyway.

Regina's mind flew to Henry. She hadn't even seen him – by his choice – in the thirty days she'd been under house arrest. He'd come to the trial, sat stoically, just as she did – she'd watched him. He left each night with Emma, who told her during each weekly visit that he was well. He had stayed with Emma at the apartment she used to share with her mother, back when each considered the other merely a roommate. Until their most recent meeting though, Emma had not elaborated further to Regina. They had both kept the Sheriff's supervisory visits curt and minimal. She wondered where Henry was now and made a wish that he was safe.

Finally the aromas made her mouth water. The tenderness of the vegetables told her the stew was done and she turned off the flame, searching out bowls and utensils. She didn't trust the water when she saw the rusty color come from the tap. So she grabbed an unopened bottle of red wine. She popped the cork and poured a small measure of the wine to taste. _Oh._ It tasted like it had been aged a quarter century or more. _Simply sublime._ For the first time in hours she felt herself smile as she lowered the glass, refilled hers and then poured a second full glass for Emma.

Still conflicted though about the question of Emma and magic, she emerged from the kitchen with the token meal on a tray.

* * *

"Stew, huh?" Emma sat up, lifting her fork. "Smells good." She lifted the glass tumbler, taking a sip, and was surprised. "Wine?"

"Nothing else really. The water didn't look safe," Regina said.

"It's nice," Emma said after taking a sip. "Is there more?"

"Granny has a decent collection back there."

"Maybe I'll grab a second bottle for later. It'll be great for the pain."

Regina stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth. "Your knee again? Is the pain bad?"

"Whatever I did wore off completely about twenty minutes ago."

"What about wrapping it up?"

"Bandages fell to pieces." Emma waited for Regina to say something. When the brunette didn't, only going back to eating with a pensive expression, Emma let the silence stretch further, returning to her own meal.

"You could do the pain block again," Regina said finally, not looking up.

"Why can't I just heal the damn thing?" Regina didn't respond. Emma guessed that nearly five minutes passed before Regina put down her fork and got up from the table. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to get the second bottle of wine and then we're going to the house."

"The house?"

"My house I suppose."

"Why?"

"I'm going to give you my spell book."

"You don't remember how to heal a broken bone?"

"I can't help you." Regina looked... anxious, if Emma had to put a name to the way her eyes darted between Emma's unable to hold her gaze steadily. _And had her pulse sped up?_ Emma thought looking at the flutter at the base of the brunette's throat.

Emma pressed, conveying confidence. "Yes, you can. Like you did before, just talk me through it."

Regina leaned heavily on the table as she gathered her half-eaten bowl and empty glass. "Healing the bone is going to take more than meditation. I can't be around when you do that kind of magic, Emma."

"Because you can't do it yourself?"

"I can't stand that you're in pain," Regina snapped. "But watching your magic, _experiencing_ your magic... Emma, it hurts."

"It hurts? What? How?"

Regina shook her head. "It just does."

"Why?" Regina just shook her head again and walked away, disappearing into the kitchen. This time Emma wasn't going to let her go. She wrestled onto her feet and, fumbling with her walking stick, she hobbled into the kitchen. Seeing the rounded shoulders as Regina let down her guard thinking she was alone, Emma yelled, "Damn it, Regina, stop!"

Regina spun and flew in a rage toward Emma. "What the hell are you doing on your feet?" She pulled up short almost comically as the brunette strove not to actually run into her. "Get off your leg, damn you!" Emma could see she was shaking.

"I will." Emma took a deep breath. _Fuck._ The pain was starting to turn her stomach. "When you tell me why you won't help me?"

"Emma, the spell book will – "

"Damn the spell book! You know all about this... stuff. You have to teach me!"

"You can read, Sheriff. Take the book you'll be fine."

"But _you_ won't! What the hell are you going to do about your broken skin and those gouges? They're everywhere! I haven't had a chance to examine the ones on your legs, but your arms are a _mess_! Half of them are probably infected already! You laid down in the goddamn _dirt _out there!" Emma stabbed her finger in the general direction of outside. A light by the kitchen door exploded.

Regina's eyes widened. Emma turned to look at the light but saw her hand first. A pale red glow enveloped it and her fingers tingled with an inexplicable heat.

"What the hell just happened?" The tingling slowly dissipated, taking the heat away with it.

"You... manifested an electrical charge." Regina sounded vaguely stunned.

Emma was beyond vaguely. "I what?" Her knees shook.

"You shot a lightning bolt from your hand."

Meeting Regina's gaze and reading the truth of that statement in the dark chocolate depths, Emma closed said hand into a fist and dropped it to her side, her shoulder feeling heavy. "I, uh, I think... I need to sit down." Her head suddenly ached and her vision swam. _Damn, I'm exhausted._ She couldn't seem to make her hand work the walking stick hearing its ticka-tacka on the floor, but not gaining steadiness from the action.

Regina caught her under the right shoulder once again, tossing the walking stick away. Emma looked at the raven's wing black hair against her red jacket, caught the scent of lavender and apples, and in a very disjointed way thought, _she looks really good against my shoulder_. She tightened her arm against Regina's back.

"Okay. Okay. Come on." Regina supported Emma's weight for the walk back through the diner and out the front door to the borrowed brown car. Emma was too tired to protest and her eyes already were closing. Regina opened the passenger door and guided Emma onto the seat before going around to the driver side. "How do I start the car?" she asked once she was settled inside.

"Rotate the ignition switch with your finger and thumb. The circuit's open." Emma felt the engine rumble to life. The pain in her knee was jolted to a new level and she bit her lip to stifle a whimper.


	10. Chapter 10

_disclaimers on part 1_

_**Author's Note:**_ _Thank you to Laura D for the beta-boosts. And to all who continue to follow, favorite, and review, thank you, too._ _Your enthusiasm helps me to create._

_**This part:**__ Emma and Regina face more challenges when they reach Regina's home._

**Your Move part 10**  
by LZClotho

It looked like Sleeping Beauty's castle was all Regina could think. She pulled the brown car into her empty driveway and shut off the engine, just continuing to stare at the vines, ivy, and briars that had done a fairly complete job of swallowing her house whole. Almost none of the white exterior was visible. No other homes in the neighborhood were similarly affected. The mansion and city hall. Her two domains here. Whoever or whatever had attacked Storybrooke, had it been after her?

"Regina?" Emma lifted her head sleepily, blinking toward her. Then her eyes widened as she caught sight of the house. "Wha – ?"

"We're here, but I don't know how much good it'll do."

"What the hell happened?" Emma grabbed for the door handle, almost falling out of the car as she struggled to get out with her uncooperative leg.

By the time Regina had rushed around the car, Emma was hauling herself to her feet by leaning heavily on the open door and swearing a blue streak. "We're going to need a machete to get through that," Emma surmised. "Or my father's sword?" She looked hopefully toward Regina.

"Unfortunately it was destroyed in an attempt to get to you outside the barrier. Sorry."

"Oh." Emma started to let go of the car door. Regina ducked in and supported her shoulder. "Well, let's take a look since we're already here."

It all looked dead enough, Regina thought, but her stomach gave a lurch and twisted as she focused on moving Emma along the front walk toward the door. The shadows shifted as they neared the house. _Was that movement? _She turned her head quickly to track what she thought she had seen out of the corner of her eye.

She felt Emma's reciprocal grip on her back tighten and looked at the blonde's face to see her gaze riveted on a spot near her feet. Looking down, Regina saw a thorn-laden vine ended near the stoop, leading from part of the tangled mass of vines to the left of the door.

It was moving. Wary of hurting Emma by moving too quickly, Regina nevertheless pulled back. "Emma," she warned.

"I see it." Both watched as the vine slipped over Emma's booted foot. When it started to circle Emma's ankle, Regina reached down to pull it away.

A sound rent the air, very much like a pig's squeal, startling both women. The vine continued to tighten.

Emma fell backward as her balance was compromised, and pulled Regina down with her. She reached for the vine as Regina continued to wrestle with it. Another vine separated from the mass on the house, wrapping around Regina's forearm. She screamed when its rough surfaces contacted her open wounds.

"Hold on! Let me just – !" Emma finally got both hands around the thick vine but not before Regina had been pulled off Emma and was being dragged toward the house. As she closed her grip, grimacing at the slimy-rough feel, the vine pulled back from her, and the part in her hands turned to dust.

"Ha!" Emma grabbed at the vine that had taken Regina captive, splaying her against the house pulling at her limbs. Regina screamed again and vines started to squeeze her throat. Wild-eyed she found Emma stumbling to her feet.

"Emma! Careful!"

Emma grabbed vines and Regina watched each one turn to dust. One fell away from her leg leaving her hanging by her throat and left arm. Breath choked off, she saw the edges of her vision turning red then black. Suddenly the pressure was gone and she fell forward into Emma's arms, gasping. The vines continued coming. Emma's touch turned each to dust. But her leg could not hold both of them upright for long.

Emma wrapped herself around Regina as they fell to the stoop and then rolled into the grass. Abruptly though, Emma's body was torn from hers. Regina screamed and lurched up trying to grab for the blonde. Emma was against the house putting her hands to every vine she could reach.

"Emma!"

"Stay back, Regina!" Emma's voice was clear and strong, even as Regina's view of her became blocked by a wall of vines and the dust cloud forming from their disintegration. It was like the mine collapse all over again, and Regina's heart thudded hard in her throat.

"Emma, stop!" Regina started toward the house only to jump back as vines snaked toward her. There seemed to be a definite perimeter established, and she was unable to get inside it. But Emma's campaign against the vines seemed to be finally making headway. The mass seemed to be diminishing on the house.

Gradually the sound and fury dissipated. Emma sat on the stoop, leaning back heavily against Regina's front door.

"Regina." Emma's breathing was shallow and fast, her voice barely a whisper.

"Emma!" Regina rushed to the blonde, crouching over her. She cupped Emma's chin, scrutinizing the drooping eyes, the labored breathing, and the too-rapid pulse.

"I think you can go inside now." Emma's words came slowly, each word spoken after a careful and deeper breath.

"You are insane, you know that?" Regina wrapped her arms around Emma's chest and helped her leverage to stand before the front door.

"Just hope you didn't lock it when you left."

Regina turned the knob gingerly, glancing quickly left then right to see if anything was going to try to attack them again. It moved easily in her hand. "Hold onto me," she warned Emma, as she felt the woman's weight shifting against the door.

Pushing inward, Regina felt Emma's arms wrap around her waist as the blonde leaned heavily on Regina's back. Once the door was wide, Regina and Emma shuffled across the threshold. With both hands supporting the blonde, Regina resorted to kicking her front door closed once they were clear.

"Hey, violence," Emma chastised.

"You're going to lecture me about violence? Attacking the house? What did you think you were doing?"

"Saving your ass," Emma replied. The tone was biting even if the words were breathless. "Just help me set down somewhere before I fall down."

The two of them fell gracelessly to the sofa in Regina's living room. Emma leaned her head back on the cushion until she saw the ceiling overhead and closed her eyes. Regina leaned forward over her knees and found herself studying the chessboard still laid out on the table, her eyes drawn to the white knight piece as she rubbed her temples with her fingers.

"Left the wine at Granny's," Emma said after a few minutes.

Regina rolled her eyes. "You and your mother apparently have the same tendency to think of completely irrelevant things at the most inopportune times."

"Hmm?"

Regina shook herself. "Forget it." She closed her eyes, but feeling Emma shift, she opened them again and turned her head to see the blonde leaning forward in a mimic of her own position. "What're you doing? You should sleep."

She thought of how Emma had been almost completely obscured by the vines. Her heart had lurched at the idea of being all alone here, how Emma might have been lost to her. The shivers of her body turned to tears and she hunched her shoulders to hide her face, so tired, so ashamed. _So fucking scared. Oh god!_

"Hey, hey, it's all right." Emma's arms gently enfolded her. Regina felt the prickles of renewed pain and, with her stamina gone to block it out mentally, she sobbed all the harder. A gentle hand pressed her head against Emma's chest and she felt the steady weight of Emma's chin against the top of her head. Another hand circled on Regina's back.

It took her a few moments to realize that she felt very specific trails of heat. Abruptly she jerked away from Emma. "No."

"What?"

"You need to heal your knee." Regina pushed Emma's hands away and stumbled to her feet. "I'll be right back." Regina ran from the room, up the stairs toward her bedroom.

She was stopped by the sight of Henry's door in the corridor opposite her own. It had remained closed throughout her house arrest because she couldn't bear to look on the vacant space where her son refused to live. Yet now it stood open.

As she went to close the door, her gaze naturally fell to the bed. On the spread which looked as neatly made as the last day she had closed the door behind her, there was a small white chess piece. She snatched at it in alarm. It was a white pawn piece from her chess set downstairs.

Fright and anger warred for control. The message was clear; someone had been here. Was it a threat against Henry or merely a message? Had the same person caused the vines and the destruction in town? She thought immediately of Rumpelstiltskin. He had arranged her adoption of Henry and had known the boy's connection to Snow White and the curse. So he could most easily be the one who thought of him as a pawn. But what would he have wanted with Henry that he hadn't already called in one of his infamous deals to wrangle it out of Regina in the last eleven years? Why only when she had left her home following the curse's break?

Putting the piece in her pocket, Regina knew it was more important than ever now that Emma heal herself and begin the search for what had happened in Storybrooke. She backed out of the room, making sure the door was firmly shut.

Regina retrieved a hardbound book covered in silver leaf from her bedside table. It contained her spells, gathered as she learned magic after the Genie trapped himself in her mirror. When she thought magic was back in Storybrooke and she might be able to use it to reclaim her son, she had dug the book up from beneath her apple tree. Henry wasn't the only Mills to ever bury something important to keep it from someone else.

But the book had become only a source of painful nostalgia as the days wore on without her magic returning. Each night she would open it, but only find self-flagellation within its pages before falling asleep alone.

Now though Emma could use it. Regina had most of the herbs the various spells called for. She didn't know how far she would need to be from Emma while the younger woman worked the healing spell, but, remembering the touch of the smoky wisps with a shiver, she knew she had been too close in the forest.

She was just reaching the top of the stairs, the book tucked inside her right arm, when she saw Emma hobbling toward the bottom of the staircase across the open space of the foyer.

"There you are!" Emma said, looking up at her.

"Took me a bit of time to find it." Regina started down the staircase, gripping the railing to steady herself as she met Emma's inquisitive green gaze.

"So what exactly am I going to be doing?"

Regina put as much snark as she could into her reply, hoping to establish and bolster a difficult, but necessary, emotional distance. "Following directions, Miss Swan." She pressed the book onto reluctant hands and stepped past Emma onto the first floor. "I'm going to see to the state of my kitchen and put together what you'll need."

Emma gestured at the door and around the house. "I took a look around. Whatever cast the vines as protection seems to have preserved things in here. Haven't you noticed it doesn't have the same stale smells of the other house or the diner?"

"What makes you think that's connected to the vines?"

Emma's response was the most logical deduction. "They weren't here when I left."

Regina nodded. She followed Emma into the living room once again but hung back at the door, leaning on the jamb. Her eyes trailed over the blonde as she settled to the sofa and began thumbing through the spell book. Regina watched Emma's face intently for reaction. When the blonde said nothing, Regina knew she had passed the book's "test." To a non-magic person the symbols and runes would be only gibberish, but to one with magic, it would appear perfectly comprehensible. _All right_, Regina thought. "I'll be in the kitchen."

Just like the pain block, much of what was entailed in the bone healing spell appeared on the surface to be homeopathic medicine, a poultice made from several herbs, wrapping the joint in a cocoon of blood-promoting warmth. But it was the magic that set the bone in place correctly or not, and would knit the bones back to health over minutes instead of weeks or months.

Falling and straining the bones as they struggled first to get into town and then Emma's fight with the vines had worsened the break, taking not only the knee cap completely out of its proper place, but stressing a hairline fracture of her tibia into a full break.

By the time Regina returned to the living room with the bowl of poultice and towels for creating the compress cocoon, Emma had started struggling out of her jeans, but the lack of ability to bend her right leg was making them almost impossible to pull off. Regina set the bowl on the table and silently assisted Emma in removing her pants. She set them aside over the arm of the sofa and handed Emma the poultice bowl.

Last, she lifted Emma's leg gingerly and slid three of the towels underneath.

Emma winced as Regina tied off the lower leg towel, but left the other two untied; Emma would secure them after the poultice had been applied. "You sure you can't help me with this?"

Regina looked up from between Emma's legs, removing her hand from the woman's calf and shook her head. "I'll be in the house, but..."

"What happened, Regina?"

"What do you mean?"

"You helped me with the pain block, but now you won't help anymore. You said it hurt. How did I hurt you?"

Regina faltered in her resolve under the weight of the self-blame Emma was displaying. However she needed to protect herself. "Your magic will take care of you just fine. You're a natural. That lightning display at the diner was impressive."

"And unintentional," Emma pushed her protest. "I could have hurt you or myself. How do I control something like this?"

The entreaty was powerful. Regina remembered her own fear of magic in the beginning. Even though she knew it was going to be the only thing to change her circumstances at the time, all she could think about was the pain and hatred with which her mother had wielded it. She gave Emma the only warning she had never received. "Remember where your magic comes from, Emma. Yours comes from your heart. Trust it. True love is the most powerful magic of all."

Unable to speak more, or stay any longer lest she break down, Regina used the small table to push to her feet and then walked unsteadily from the living room.


	11. Chapter 11

_disclaimers on part 1_

_**Author's Note:**__ I've been spoiled a bit with all the writing time I've had this summer (I've been unemployed), being able to write close to 10,000 words a week. But yesterday I accepted a new position that starts Monday. So, I'm updating now to make sure I get out this part. To you, dear readers, yes, I WILL finish this story and the other "I Just Need A Moment." I do already know exactly where and how both are going to continue and finish. However the parts will be posted less frequently._

_**This part:** Emma and Regina face the truth of Emma's magic when the Savior attempts to heal her own leg. And... we finally come back to the reason this is an M-rated fic. Enjoy!_

**Your Move part 11**  
by LZClotho

Emma stared at the doorway for a long moment after Regina had disappeared through it. When she began to hear only her own heartbeat in the stillness of the room, she looked down at her knee. Gripping her thigh with one hand she placed the other on her chest over her heart, feeling its thumps weakly. _Remember where your magic comes from_, Regina had said.

Emma nearly wept with the irony. The only thing she had never trusted, that led to her not trusting another person her entire life, was the source of her magic. _How on earth am I going to do this?_

The spell book had all the steps. Regina had prepared the poultice. Emma lifted the bowl and stroked a finger through the off-white paste experimentally and noted the consistency and feel. It felt warm and tingly like a gel for sore muscles. She caught a different odor though, not menthol or camphor. From the ingredients list she surmised it was the extract of peppers and arnica. But she also could smell peanuts and... she hesitated, yes, apples. The spell book indicated it was necessary to use either apples or figs, and well, at one point, Regina had an almost endless supply of the one and probably none of the other.

Emma applied the concoction while she went over the mantra-like words of the spell on the book's page. Nothing seemed to be happening. Maybe she was reading it wrong? Tendrils of doubt bloomed into clawing fingers steadily tearing down her confidence as she continued throwing the goop onto her knee. When she went to tie off the towels to enclose the limb, she was already crying tears from the pain. When the first towel closed in the heat, her pain escalated.

"Fuck, fuck!" Emma gasped, grabbing at the joint radiating in agony. The bone felt like it was breaking all over again. Tearing at the towels and screaming, she cried out for the only thing she could clearly think of. "Regina! Regina! Help! Oh god, please make it stop!"

Only vaguely aware because the pain was drowning out all of her senses, Emma felt Regina rush into the room and fall to her side on the sofa. The other woman struggled with Emma's hands on the towels, trying to tie each again even as Emma was untying them to push away the source of the pain.

"God, I can't do this!" Emma screamed. "Stop! Stop!"

"Emma, you have to. Focus. Come on. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Come on." Regina's arms trapped Emma's against her chest, away from the towels. Emma struggled , tears streaming down her face as she screamed. Her leg felt on fire from inside. "Come on." Regina's voice sounded against the side of her head, her mouth pressed to Emma's cheek. "Shh, your heart. Quiet. Shh, listen for your heartbeat. Please."

Emma's cheek was getting wet; Regina was crying. Bit by bit, Emma focused on the gritty wetness of the woman's tears on her skin, then Regina's voice in her ear. She calmed as the heat from Regina's breath soothed the side of her face. The scents of lavender and apples from Regina's skin and hair filled her nostrils. She grabbed Regina's head, threshing her hands through brunette locks, and pulled Regina's head back. Then she fell forward into the glistening brown eyes, mesmerized by the swirls of gold. Her lips claimed Regina's, desperate and deep.

She caught Regina's hands on her legs, scrabbling to tie off the towels; the terrycloth was rough and Regina's hands were so smooth. Without breaking the kiss, Emma cupped Regina's hands to her thigh.

Heat and light filled her and overflowed. She closed her eyes and felt the threads spinning from her heart again. There were tiny tugs, just as there had been when she healed Regina's one sore. _Healing._

Emma's eyes flew open with her gasp. She held Regina's hands tightly, preventing the other woman from moving. She stared down at her knee. The pure white and smoke-like threads slipped out of Emma's hands, through Regina's and penetrated the joint. A glow surrounded her leg shifting from gray to pure white, then began pulsing between the two colors. The burn of the paste was still there, but it felt soothing now.

"Emma, please..." Regina sounded desperate and scared as she struggled against the hold Emma kept on her hands. It all became very clear to Emma as the seconds ticked by. She felt the unmistakable tingle and itch of healing taking place deep within her bones and the flow of her magic through her blood. What was happening was only happening because Regina was there. Her magic was only possible because of Regina.

Flashes of moments from the last twenty four hours flowed through Emma's mind. Not jerky like when she had first awakened on the road, but smooth and lyrical, lingering on each image. It wasn't frightening anymore. It wasn't something to distance herself from, or to push away. Staring into Regina's eyes now, Emma luxuriated in each memory.

_Regina's face as she cupped her cheek at the close of the chess game, startled, worried. Her eyes looked into Emma's with every wish ever wished by a lonely broken heart plainly shining in the brown depths. _

_The brunette's lithe and soft body rising and falling to the rhythm of Emma's every stroke. _

_Then Emma was pierced by a throb in her own chest echoing the sounds and sight of Regina crying out in her orgasm. _

_Her mind flowed to the relief of catching Regina's hands in hers in the terrifying second before the car had tumbled off the edge of the road and disappeared down into the ravine. Emma's heart had nearly pounded out of her chest at the thought she might have missed. _

_How angry she was that Regina wouldn't let her use magic to heal her wounds. Her mind filled with terrifying visions of Regina wasting away feverishly from an infection. _

"I could have lost you," she murmured. "Oh, god, Regina..." She lifted her hands from Regina's and wrapped her arms desperately around Regina's upper body, burying her face in the curve where the woman's shoulder met her throat, needing her as close as possible as she inhaled the woman's steadying scent. "Oh god, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

With the softest touch, Regina lifted Emma's head from her shoulder. "It's all right. You don't..." The brunette head was shaking back and forth, the brown eyes dark with sadness.

"I do." She kissed Regina's mouth. "Look." She drew Regina's attention to her leg and flexed it out and down and back again.

"It worked." Regina's voice was filled with joy and what Emma accepted now was love.

"I'm so sorry, Regina." Emma cupped her face as she realized now why the brunette had been pulling away ever since the forest. "It was never just sex. I was just so scared." She felt her heart expand at the acknowledgment, as if now, no longer strangled by Emma's fears and doubts, it could fill and fill and fill with the magic her body was capable of wielding. "You told me it was my heart."

Regina tried to back away, her eyes darting between Emma's fearfully. Emma grasped the woman's left forearm. She dropped her chin, looking down at the limb, and smiled. With light touches, and even more delicate caresses that crackled the air between them, Emma knitted every sore, every tear, every scrape, not only on the surface, but deep within. When she let Regina's arm go, there was not a blemish to be seen.

"But I have always felt my heart was useless; I never trusted it. Not until you." Emma kissed Regina then grasped Regina's right arm and repeated the magic, leaving that limb healed. "You are the key to my magic, because you are the key to my heart."

Emma pulled Regina onto her lap, soothing her hands over now healed arms. Then she caressed her fingers up Regina's throat and over her ears, thinking how beautiful and delicate was everything about the woman. Her hands sank into the thick soft locks of dark hair before she pulled the woman's face to hers and claimed her lips for another deep kiss. "I love you, Regina." And she kissed her again.

Every dark and terrifying memory surged up inside Regina, but instead of terrorizing her mind, each flowed out of her as tears. Sobs shook her body, but Emma's hands clutched at her, holding her together.

A cleansing that had begun in this very room only twenty four hours ago, was resumed. A lifetime of agony and self-loathing, and bone-deep belief in her unworthiness to be loved poured out onto Regina's cheeks. Where claws of the past had ripped ocean-wide tears in her soul, she was knitted together by Emma's touch.

Slipping off the sofa, Emma knelt at Regina's feet, pulling off the shoes and shredded pants, finally seeing the damage the barrier had wrought in horrifying detail. Regina cried out when Emma's fingertips first touched the gashes she had been successful in blocking the pain from for most of the day.

Emma lifted Regina's leg, kissing the ankle as she mapped her hands up the calves with focus and care. She sought out and closed every tear in skin and muscle, mending at the same time the mirrored rips in Regina's soul beneath. Emma's hand skimmed over the femoral artery on the inside of Regina's thigh, feeling the woman's life pulsing. She pressed with her palm, drawing in the powerful sensation of Regina's indomitable energy, born of the need to survive. Finally she touched the satin skin with her lips, a benediction that flooded Regina's body with much more than mere healing of mortal wounds. Regina's next gasp held a different quality.

A new scent filled Emma's nostrils and she flared them, breathing it in deeply. "I love you, Regina." She stood and took Regina's hand, lifting her from the sofa. "Come on. I want to make love with you." She knew it for the truth it was when she said it. She had the power to vanquish all the iniquities of evil, to heal a body and a soul, with the most powerful magic of all: love.

* * *

Upstairs, bright light spilled into Regina's bedroom. Emma stopped just inside the doorway in surprise. It had been dusk, just after dinner, when they first arrived at Regina's home. Body shocked into alertness she strode dragging Regina's hand in hers to the sheers curtaining the balcony doors. The sun was shining. Judging from the length of the shadows, it was eight or nine in the morning. Emma's gaze next fell on Regina's apple tree. The dominant feature of her yard, which had been wilted and covered in rotting fruit since the curse had broken, now stood tall and lushly filled with green leaves covered in fresh white blooms. Its limbs hung heavy with the blood-red fruit.

Turning, she took in the kisses of color that sunlight left on Regina's face and the wonder in her eyes at the miracle. Passion and love for this woman welled up, a slow and luxurious feeling that she poured into the kiss she gave to full red lips, as if they had all the time in the world. She pressed her body length into Regina's, rolling her hips as her mouth descended from lips to throat. To her delight, she heard Regina purr in her ear.

She stripped the brunette naked in the sunlight, kissing down her torso everywhere sunbeams dappled the olive skin, before removing the rest of her own clothes. Picking up Regina, she coaxed legs around her hips and arms around her neck as she slung her hands under the satin globes of Regina's bottom. When her feet left the ground, Regina gasped; Emma laughed and kissed her, which made Regina chuckle as well.

Lips never long parted continued to trade kisses as Emma reentered the bedroom. She tumbled the brunette onto the bed on her back. With a laugh, she followed her and brought their bodies together to continue their sensuous dance. She chased sunbeams along the flesh of Regina's body, dabbling her tongue in the curve of a breast, on the tightness of a nipple, and within the flare of a hipbone. Reaching the tiny indentation of her belly button raised more laughter from Regina as she tangled her fingers in Emma's hair.

Emma paused and let the sound and vision before her saturate her every pore. Lacing her fingers under her chin, she rested her head above Regina's pubic bone. The heat from Regina's center bathed Emma's throat, and the scent of her arousal so close made Emma's mouth dry, longing for a taste. But it was the view up the long body raised on elbows to look upon her that captivated Emma. The ever-present dark shadows in Regina's eyes were gone; they flowed now with the eddies of warm honey.

Sliding up the beautiful woman, Emma sought full lips again. Both of them shuddered with passion at the light contacts their bodies made. Regina turned to her side. Emma tangled their legs, and entwined her fingers with Regina's. Regina pushed her over onto her back, separating their hands as she suspended her body above Emma's and slowly lowered it, fitting snugly in the cradle of Emma's hips. Regina's heart hammered against both their chests when the woman's breasts were finally pillowed atop hers. Emma wove both her hands into the dark hair and pressed nibbling kisses to the lips hovering above her own. Regina's arms shook with the force of her rising passion.

"Relax. I'm just getting started," she murmured. Regina laughed, one elbow collapsing.

Emma laughed and urged the woman up, rising with her and guiding her hands to the headboard, encouraging her to hold tight by stroking over her knuckles. Cupping breasts in her hands, Emma massaged taut nipples until Regina was writhing in her grasp, moaning and blindly lifting an arm to catch Emma around the back of the head and pull her in for a devouring kiss sparkling with their shared laughter. "Emma!" Regina's passion throttled the name in her throat and Emma laughed anew.

"Ah, now hold on," Emma teased, stroking her hands over the backs of Regina's in gentle admonition. Once sure the woman would keep holding the wood, Emma stroked her hands down Regina's back and kissed the nape of her neck. As her mouth moved lower, Regina craned her chin over her shoulder to watch what she was doing.

Kissing the dimple at the base of Regina's spine, Emma met the brown gaze and danced her eyebrows, eliciting another throaty laugh from the dark-haired woman. She pressed more kisses across the tight ass, parting warm thighs with deft fingers and sampling the swelling moist flesh between. Regina lifted her leg. Emma lay down underneath and wrapped her arms around strong thighs. Their gazes met again across the softly curving plain of Regina's stomach and breasts before Emma pulled the woman's center to her mouth, anchoring her body, and licked and nipped and sucked at the tender folds of flesh. Every sensation sent Regina's renewed soul spiraling heavenward.

The dark-haired woman cried, and shouted, and laughed in her pleasure. Unbounded joy came from her throat unused to such emotions. She reached between her thighs and tangled one hand in Emma's golden locks as the wave crested within her body. Languid as if she were drifting weightless among the stars, Regina pressed her forehead into the headboard to catch her breath. Emma gave her center a parting kiss before Regina slid down against her to be cradled within the blonde's strong arms.


	12. Chapter 12

**_Disclaimers on part 1._**

_**Author's Note:** A huge THANK YOU to everyone still sticking around. I can't believe OUAT resumes in just 3 days! All the promos and sneak peeks have me so excited! I know it has been a terribly long time since my last update, but things in life are keeping me so busy. Hopefully though, with this update, "Your Move" is turning the corner toward its climax and resolution._

**Your Move 12**

_"You _never _loved me. You made me think I was crazy to believe in the curse - that _you _cast! I hate you! Good _will _win! You are the Evil Queen!"_

Regina awoke with a gasp, Henry's voice ringing in her ears. Clutching her chest she tried to slow her heart's hammering against her ribs so painfully. Tears wet her cheeks and clogged her throat. "Henry? No, no," she murmured, "Please." She called out to the fading image of her son.

A strong arm slipped across Regina's waist, the weight drawing Regina's gaze downward. The reality of where she was sunk in as she traced the limb, with its light dusting of blond hair, up to a bare shoulder, a bare collarbone and, finally, over the small cleft in a strong chin and full lips to blinking and hazy green eyes. "Regina," Emma said dazedly as their gazes met. "What's up?"

Regina debated what to say. Emma's hand shifted from her hip to her stomach, and her muscles clenched at the contact, remembering their lovemaking.

Lovemaking. Regina marveled at the memories of something that had gone truly deeper than sex. She couldn't remember ever laughing in bed; she couldn't recall laughing much in her life at all. _Not since..._ She felt her mouth turning down.

"Hey?" Emma's hand cupped Regina's down-turned chin. "I heard you call for Henry," she said. Regina tilted her head up again and her eyes tracked to Emma's. "We will find him," Emma said, her voice filled with a rare gravitas.

Regina's throat blocked and tears spilled fresh onto her cheeks. Emma was upright in an instant, enfolding Regina against her chest and pressing Regina's head against Emma's shoulder. At first Regina fisted her hands against Emma's belly, unwilling and unused to seeking comfort. But the warmth of another body, the sound of another's heartbeat in her ear, and the memory of her dream made the tears come harder. She gasped and her hands openly clutched at Emma, fingers digging into the taut muscles of the woman's back, trying to keep at bay the drowning sensation that came with being emotionally exposed.

She breathed in the lush scent of Emma, but also caught a singed smell, like a candle had been burned and snuffed. Recognizing it as the aftereffect of the woman's magic, she brushed her lips against Emma's collarbone. She imagined she could taste the magic, too. She definitely could feel it. There was an undercurrent to the movements of Emma's muscles, that made Regina's fingers tingle.

Emma's hands moved onto Regina's arms as the blonde sought to separate them and look into her face. The pads of Emma's fingers skimmed over her biceps and the sensation reminded her that the woman had healed her wounds. But it had gone deeper than that, too. As she met green eyes and took in Emma's bashful smile, and felt her own genuine smile tugging at her face in response, Regina realized she didn't feel empty anymore. The void wasn't just a little bit filled, the way she'd felt bringing Henry into her home and heart as a baby. She actually felt no tension within her body at all. There had been so little of herself left after Daniel's loss and casting the dark curse that she'd always felt the need to hold herself and her emotions tightly in check just to keep herself from falling apart. It had given her the imperiousness that others called detachment if they were kind, but which most simply called the nature of evil.

"It's been so long," Regina murmured, closing her eyes and feeling suddenly dizzy and exhausted. She leaned heavily into Emma.

"We will find out what happened. There have to be clues somewhere," Emma said. "I thought we'd start by going through the mess at city hall."

"Clues?"

"To finding Henry and the rest."

"Oh."

"That wasn't what you were talking about? What's been so long then?"

"It doesn't matter." Regina shrugged it off.

Emma's brow furrowed and she shook her head, blond hair sweeping into her face. She pushed it aside. "Eventually I'm going to find out," she muttered. "But how about we take a shower so I can wake up enough to wrestle it out of you."

Regina found herself laughing again; it came so easily, it was frightening. Her voice dropped into a throaty register as she dipped her chin and looked up through her lashes into hazel-green eyes regarding her. "I might enjoy another round of wrestling with you, Miss Swan."

"Oh, fuck. Regina." Emma grabbed Regina roughly around the waist and covered her mouth in hungry kisses before she spoke again. "Humor _and_ your natural sensuality... Killer combination."

Their lips melded together once more. As Emma's emotions became more and more evident, Regina felt the woman's magic sparking over both their skin. It was such a heady feeling, but she didn't pull away. She knew now it _was_ meant for her. Somehow against all odds, she had found another... honest love. She didn't dare wish to name it more.

"Emma." Regina breathed into the blonde's open mouth. She palmed Emma's breast, catching the nipple between her fingers and smiled when she heard Emma's gasp. She felt the magic lifting the hair on her head and arms, as though she had come in contact with a Van de Graaf generator.

But the sensation startled Emma. "OK. OK. Hold on." Emma pulled away. "I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?"

"No," Regina replied. "It's my turn." She nudged Emma onto her back, trapping the muscular legs with her own lean ones. Stroking her fingers through Emma's golden locks, she untangled golden strands with a light touch.

She studied the face of the woman who had saved her, who had been saving her for months, despite all of Regina's efforts to drive her away.

"Thank you," she said. She tracked Emma's green gaze before closing her eyes and dipping her head to capture soft lips. Emma's hands slid up her back and cradled her head, keeping Regina in place as the kisses continued with nips, nibbles, and soft feather-light brushes just tasting one another's warm breath. "Thank you. Emma."

She shifted more fully atop the other woman's body, reveling in the way their soft curves slipped together. Emma's thighs parted and Regina's leg slipped between them. Emma bent her knee, flexing the muscle against Regina's center. Regina bit her lip to contain her moan. She pressed her own knee, watching as Emma threw her head back, baring her throat, gasping out a moan from the stimulation. Regina smiled, something of a devilish expression, and moved her leg again, dabbling kisses down Emma's throat to her collarbone before latching onto a nipple with barely concealed teeth.

Emma's body bucked and she moaned again. Regina plied the bit of flesh between her teeth and tongue, rolling it, and held on the lush body as the stimulation drove Emma toward her peak and the woman's panting filled Regina's ears. She stroked Emma's rolling hip before bringing a hand to join her knee, teasing at Emma's swollen and soaked flesh. Circling the woman's center with two fingers, she spread the wetness as she went and reveled in Emma's responsiveness. The woman buried her face in Regina's shoulder, kissing her sweaty skin while Regina maintained the depth and rhythm of her strokes.

The sensation was beyond anything Regina had ever felt. She had never thought two people could feel part of the same body during sex. She had always felt so distanced from other lovers. She understood now it had been a lack of true feeling. Feeling Emma's swollen and hot flesh squeezing her fingers now made her own center throb and quiver.

Then Emma came with short, sharp shout. Regina buried her face against Emma's shoulder and cried, happiness having bloomed bright white and hot behind her eyes as she watched Emma's gaze grow increasingly unfocused. Gasping whispers of her name tumbled from Emma's lips. She'd done that, Regina thought. She'd made someone else as happy as they had made her. Her own happiness was no longer the only thing that mattered anymore.

* * *

Emma's stomach rumbling under Regina's ear brought both women downstairs to the kitchen where Regina donned an apron – though Emma's arms tangling around her middle as she "helped" brought about more giggling than progress in tying the strings. Laughter, deep and throaty, and kisses were liberally added to the meal preparation.

"This is fabulous," Emma said after swallowing a bite of what Regina had offhandedly called chicken salad. It looked more like a 5-star restaurant's interpretation, presented as a perfect scoop on a single romaine lettuce leaf with a sprinkling of cayenne gracing the top. The woman had even used an ice-cream scoop to serve.

"This is what I was planning to make the day you came for your visit."

"Were you planning to ask me to stay?" Emma asked.

"Being alone is... wearying," Regina explained. "Even during the curse, when I was the only one with any memory, at least I could be among people when I wanted."

"Before she became Henry's teacher, did you see Snow White around Storybrooke a lot?"

Regina shook her head, wrapping an arm around her chest and clutching at her own shoulder, a sort of one-armed self-hug. "That was too much pain. I kept Henry and myself moving in other circles in town."

"King George," Emma mentioned the district attorney. Regina nodded. Emma hesitated before taking her next bite. "I don't think I really understood why you never just killed Snow. All these years..."

"Torture is more damaging," Regina said, her tone dark and blunt.

Emma looked up from her food and studied Regina's face before she responded; Regina felt her low back tense in nervous anticipation. Finally, Emma spoke. "Of all the reasons you could have, I think I understand that the most."

"Maybe I was meant to come here after all." Regina exhaled.

"Without the curse there'd be no Henry," Emma confirmed.

Regina nodded. "There'd also be no you." Emma marveled at the shy smile back on the woman's face.

"I would have still been the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming." Emma set down her fork when her plate was empty. "I'll do the dishes. Where do you think we ought to start looking for everyone?"

Regina frowned at the change in topic. "I don't know. The other world doesn't exist. The curse utterly destroyed it. So I'm not sure, if they safely left here, how, or even where, they might go."

"Magic almost certainly was involved. Ten thousand people don't just vanish."

"A portal of some kind."

"Like through that guy Jefferson's hat?"

"He really was the Mad Hatter of Wonderland, dear."

"He was just plain crazy, Regina."

"Still now you don't really believe, do you? You have magic. You have the most powerful magic there ever was, and you don't believe."

"I had 28 years of pretty stark reality," Emma replied and her voice held no malice. "So did you."

Shoulder to shoulder at the sink, Regina looked at Emma, who placidly looked back at her. Regina thought about their earlier lovemaking, and she had an epiphany. It could be both a way forward in their search for the others and a way to bring Emma the childhood wonder Regina's actions had caused her not to experience.

"Let's start in Gold's shop," she said. A few things in the imp's collection might work with Emma's magic like divining rods to home in on the missing. "Besides, I owe him for threatening Henry."

"Threatening Henry?" This was news to Emma.

"There was a white pawn on Henry's bed upstairs." Regina reached into her pocket where she'd tucked the marble chess piece.

Emma gingerly took it. "What makes you think that he put it there?"

Regina's eyes narrowed. "Rumple arranged Henry's adoption. I am sure he knew somehow that Henry was the son of the Savior. And we both know he used Henry as a pawn to get the curse broken and magic brought into this world."

Emma's eyes flashed a darker green, obviously recalling when both of them found out Henry had died in the hospital, and both of them had believed the true love potion which had been their only hope. Emma had been furious. She'd left Regina in the lock up at the sheriff's office to go confront Gold. Regina had faced him herself, taunted by the fact that he remained free while she'd become "a black-hearted bird in a cage."

"That man has a lot to answer for," Emma growled. "Do you think he's behind what happened with this?"

"In some way, I think so. But the apple tree coming back to life... That tree is solely tied to me."

"Well let's get started on finding out what happened and finding everyone. When we find him, we'll... deal with him."

Regina looked down to see Emma had taken her hand. It was soapy and wet, but it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. She squeezed it lightly back. "Let's go."

* * *

The town streets were so quiet Emma was reminded of the night she and Regina had gone to the boarded up Storybrooke Library and she had first faced the reality that there was a dragon living under the town. But their destination this time as the twilight darkened around them was Gold's Pawn Shop. Regina lifted her skeleton keys from her pocket, intent on the lock.

Emma noticed a glow as the key neared the lock and grabbed Regina's hand, forestalling the motion when she realized the brunette didn't see it. "Let me," she said.

"What?"

"There's something funny about that lock." Regina swallowed and passed Emma the key ring. Emma fumbled with the lock for a moment, and she felt an energy tingle across her hands as she turned and opened the door, but her caution seemed to serve them well. Nothing jumped out at them, and she didn't sense any immediate dangers when she stepped across the threshold. "Stick close," she warned Regina, and she felt the woman's hand slide against her back.

They were in the middle of the store's floor space when Emma heard something – a high-pitched buzz. She grabbed Regina and threw them both bodily to the floor, covering the brunette with her own bigger frame. The buzzing passed directly overhead followed by a thunk in the far wall. Emma chanced a look in that direction and saw an arrow shaft quivering, its head impaled in the drywall.

"All right," Emma rolled onto her back, letting Regina roll over as well beside her. She looked through the darkness toward the dark pools of the woman's eyes. "So what are we looking for?"

"He's always been a collector," Regina started. "There are things here that belong to most of the others, from their fairytale world lives. We might be able to use one or two to find them."

"Magical compasses."

"There's a spell for it," Regina confirmed. "Like the magic that enchanted your mother's ring so Charming could always find her."

Emma had heard the story from her father himself. "Gold would certainly like knowing where all his marks were."

"Exactly," Regina said. "Let's see what we can find."

"Do you know what stuff belongs to each person?"

"Not everyone. I wasn't involved in all their stories. But enough. My theory is where we find a few, we will find all of them."

"Good a theory as any. All right." Emma drove her elbow into the top of the glass case and started fishing around among the objects. "Hmm, something's tingling."

"That's your magic identifying other magic. What is it?" Regina leaned over Emma's shoulder and looked at the items, mostly rings, though there were a few necklaces. Emma withdrew a necklace that appeared to be a black onyx gemstone secured in a thick gold chain. "Ursula's vox stone!" Regina exclaimed. "How the hell did he get this?"

"Ursula?" Emma's voice registered her unfamiliarity with the name.

"A sea witch. The sea witch who took Ariel's voice so she could have legs to meet her prince." Regina reached for the necklace gingerly taking its chain between her fingers. "Well, now I know what he was doing in my house."

"Finding this? What would he want with this?"

"There are some enchanted gates that only open to certain voices. Capture the voice and you can project it to gain entrance."

"Magical voice print security." Emma laughed. "Since you had it, I take it there had been someplace you wanted to get into once upon a time?"

That made Regina laugh. "There was a chamber my mother kept closed all the time. I wanted inside."

"Could've been Christmas presents," Emma suggested.

"It wasn't." The tone of Regina's voice dried the laughter instantly.

"I'm sorry." Emma pursed her lips. "Did you ever find out what it was?"

Regina shook her head. "I never managed to get my mother's voice."

"So..." Emma turned her gaze back to the necklace. "Can we find Ursula with this?"

"With your magic, the spell, and a little luck."

Emma took back the necklace. "All right. I'll get the book out of the car."

Regina looked into the broken case, then into the one next to it. "We might want to get a few other things." She turned in place taking in the whole of the shadowed space. "Are those cloaks and coats?"

Emma followed Regina's gaze to what indeed looked to be a clothing rack. "Didn't know Gold ran the costume shop at Halloween," she mused.

"Those are fairytale clothing," Regina reminded, crossing to the rack. "See if you can sense anything." She pulled a fur-lined cloak from the rack. "This was your mother's when she was on the run from me."

Emma took the cloak in both hands. "There's something here," she said, her tone awed. "All right. Let's give this magical compass spell a whirl."


	13. Chapter 13

_**Author's Note:** Part 13, really? Wow. Will this be unlucky 13 or will Regina and Emma catch a break in the search for the rest of Storybrooke's residents?_

**Your Move 13**

"This is nuts!" Bent over the rotting vine that had attacked city hall, Emma stopped the recitation over the necklace in order to throw off her red leather jacket to cool off. Twenty minutes earlier she had been shivering even with the additional coverage of one of the emergency station's blankets Regina had brought as a northern wind brought frost – fucking _frost!_ – in the middle of what was supposed to be July. And they weren't getting any results from the pilfered personal property.

"Maybe it's because I owned it last," Regina thought aloud. She, too, had thrown off her blanket, but unlike Emma, wore no coat. Sweat had begun to plaster locks of her ebony hair to her forehead.

Emma could see the woman was miserable, her lashes blinking to keep the sweat from entering her eyes. When Regina lifted her forearm to blot her brow, Emma dropped the onyx stone that she had been working with and gestured. "Fine. Bring me Snow's cloak." Regina gathered up the cloak and walked it to Emma in the middle of Main Street.

A bright glow grew between their touching hands. Impulsively, Emma grabbed Regina's hand and drew her closer.

"What?" Regina asked, though she followed the tug willingly.

"C'mere. I've got an idea." Emma wrapped her arms around Regina, pulling the brunette into her body, feeling the slickness of their sweat-soaked bare arms sliding against one another. She inhaled the earthy scent of Regina's fresh sweat and suddenly could feel her magic tingling more strongly in her chest. "Ah, yeah." She kissed the shiny skin of Regina's throat. "You're gonna be my assistant."

A classic huff left the brunette's mouth. "This is not a magician's trick."

"Okay. Obviously I'm not up on the terminology. So, what exactly do you call someone who helps with magic?" Emma asked.

"A familiar. But they're animals, not people."

"A familiar?"

"Half the stories of this world portray them as black cats?" Regina tried to explain. "A familiar represents the natural world and balanced energy, providing focus."

"You'd probably make a really beautiful black cat," Emma said. Her lips quirked as a thought occurred to her and in typical Emma fashion, she just let it out. "Did you ever do the shape changing thing?"

"On very rare occasion." Regina glanced pointedly at the cloak. "Could we return to the task at hand, please?"

"Of course. My magic works better with you in the equation, so... hold on while I work this again."

Regina slipped out of Emma's embrace, but as requested she stroked her hand up and down Emma's bare arm, stopping just above the elbow with a light, supportive grip.

Emma felt the energy filling her chest. She looked at the cloak, thinking of her mother and reciting the now memorized spell phrases. Magic crackled visibly over her hands. A shockwave appeared, like a wind blowing through the fur's hairs. The wind appeared to be coming from the east to the west. She glanced in that direction, looking past Regina to see where the vine disappeared into the ground. She moved toward it, and felt the cloak start to flap in her grip. She held onto it tightly with one hand and used the other to keep Regina's hand secured to her bicep. "This way, I think," she said.

The cloak was actively trying to wrest itself from Emma's grip as they approached the massive hole in the middle of the street,. The frenzy definitely increased the closer they got.

"Oh, yeah, if this is working right, I think this is the direction she went." Emma stopped at the edge of the hole and peered into it. Regina's hand left her shoulder for the simple reason that they couldn't get down on the ground together and stay connected. The cloak's motion slowed, but Emma noticed it didn't stop. It was still trying to pull away from her. She laid on it on the ground trying to peer into the darkness under the street. "The dragon's cave is down there."

"It's also the city sewage system," Regina added with a scrunch of her nose.

"It was also the home of a dragon," Emma reminded her. "And the dwarfs were certain there was fairy dust in the mining caves. So, do you think everyone went down willingly or the vines dragged 'em down?" Emma asked.

"We have never found signs of a struggle," Regina pointed out. "Not anywhere."

Rolling to a sitting position, Emma sat fully on the cloak, simultaneously holding the damn thing still and separating her jeans from the cold asphalt. She vigorously rubbed her chest to warm it. "So, willingly then. Do we go down right here or find some other entrance?"

"How safe does it look?"

"We'll want to find some flashlights," Emma suggested.

"We can search the aid station. Even then I don't know if they'll work."

Standing now and dusting off her pants, Emma shrugged. "I'll juice 'em with my magic."

"We probably shouldn't be overly reliant on your magic, Emma. It isn't endless."

Regina's concern showed clearly in her brown eyes. Emma conceded the point. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now," Emma said. "Let's grab flashlights and go."

* * *

Regina held back and watched Emma testing her footing on the massive plant root disappearing under the street.

"Nothing to it." Emma shifted to another bulging root, using her hands to steady herself against the debris of asphalt and dirt that lined the opening. Safely ensconced in the beam of Regina's flashlight, a few feet later Emma jumped to the bottom of what appeared to be a sewage tunnel. Though it had been ripped through by the plant, the municipal system did seem to be intact going away in either direction from the massive floral invader. "Come on."

Regina turned off her flashlight as Emma turned hers onto Regina. She would need both hands to navigate and keep her footing, so they had agreed to light the way for each other rather than try to tackle the space simultaneously. She had to lift her arm to cover her eyes when Emma's flashlight beam shone directly in her face. "Hey!"

"Sorry. Watch your step," Emma warned. "It's kind of wet."

Regina stepped down at the same time she reached out to steady herself against the massive root. Her hands touched it. It vibrated. Her squeal of surprise was drowned by a horrendous screech seemingly erupting from everywhere around her at once. It echoed off the buildings and the asphalt, assaulting her ears. But she couldn't cover her ears. Smaller vines had erupted from the side of the massive plant and seized her hands in a chaotic attempt, it seemed, to pull her apart limb from limb. She heard Emma's shouts only dimly as the writhing vines tried to choke her.

She fought for breath and a sense of direction even as her vision narrowed. Then the flashlight beam she had been using to orient herself blinked out. She screamed, afraid what that meant about Emma's safety. "Emma!"

Abruptly she was falling, the vines' hold suddenly gone. She put her hands out instinctively, which luckily cushioned her landing as she slammed into a pile of asphalt, concrete, dirt, and metal rubble. Her hands stung, scraped in the contact. She tried to scramble to her feet only to find pressure against her ankles. Thinking the vine was wresting her away again, Regina screamed and struggled. Eventually she rolled onto her back to find Emma bending over her. The blonde's hands were working their way up Regina's calves. Immediately she let her body relax.

"Regina!" She met the worried green gaze as warm hands finally slid to her waist.

"Emma!" She sat up, then was pulled up, stumbling forward into Emma's tight embrace. "Oh, thank God!"

"Okay. It's okay," Emma repeated over and over again. Regina relaxed into the strong arms and hands soothing over her body as Emma assured herself Regina was in one piece. When those hands cupped her cheeks she leaned forward into a long kiss, not breaking it until she felt the swell of Emma's magic coursing over their pressed together bodies.

The security of that feeling slowed her heart rate. She felt Emma's heart pounding under her palm and pressed lightly. The contact finally seemed to calm Emma as well. Regina buried her face in the strong shoulder. "Thank you," she murmured, pressing her lips against the sweat-soaked skin.

Emma finally pulled back and guided Regina a few paces away from the tunnel entrance to settle on a pile of rubble. What had been vague light from the opening was now pitch black.

Regina felt Emma pull away. "Emma!" she called when their hands slipped apart.

From within the darkness she heard Emma's calm reply. "I'm just going to get my flashlight. I dropped it."

Regina fumbled to remove her backpack at that point, remembering her own flashlight in the outer pocket. "I... still have mine," she said quickly pressing the switch and illuminating the space around them. She saw Emma bending over to retrieve her flashlight, and swung the beam aside as Emma turned around, taking in the shape and depth of their new location.

"You were right, it's the city sewer," Emma said. "I think the mining tunnels and caves are further down."

Regina threw her flashlight beam behind Emma as the blonde approached. "Where's the vine?"

"Retreated, or crumbled, or something. When it grabbed you, I grabbed it, and the same thing happened that happened at the mansion."

"It turned to dust?" Regina couldn't help her surprise. "It squealed and attacked me."

"Same thing happened at the mansion, remember?"

"So where do we go from here? Apparently, even though appearing dead it will come to life when I touch it."

"We'll find another way down to the caves. " Emma shined her flashlight down the sewage tunnel behind Regina. "That way."

As Regina pushed herself to her feet, her flashlight beam crossed the space in the opposite direction, the area that had been blocked by the massive vine before it disappeared. Her attention was captured by a seemingly familiar bulk. "What's that?" she steadied her beam as Emma turned around.

"Is that...?" Emma's voice trailed off as Regina strode toward the object, a deep pit of foreboding growing in her stomach. "Regina, stop!" Regina froze in place.

"I'll get it," Emma said. Her flashlight had illuminated a wriggling bit of vine peeking up from the hole in the bottom of the sewage tunnel. Regina backed up as Emma passed her and crossed to the dark lump laying on the tunnel floor. It glistened a bit in Regina's light beam, revealing it was wet.

"What is it?" Regina asked.

"A backpack," Emma said, and Regina's heart rate trembled. "Looks like Henry's." The zipper opening was almost obscenely loud in the ensuing silence, and Regina's heart did skip a beat when Emma pulled out a notebook. "Henry's all right." Emma looked around on the ground. Abruptly she pointed to a space off to her left. "Shine that this way."

Regina did. "Oh no," she murmured.

Caught in her flashlight beam were scattered, ripped and soaked pages. A brown leather cover with its gold lettering proclaimed "Once Upon A Time."

"Henry!" She rushed forward and it was only Emma's quick grab throwing her further down the tunnel that made the vines that erupted to catch her miss. Tumbling to the cold wet tunnel floor, Regina snatched at the book as she rolled past it. The shadowy flurry as Emma fought the vines, turning them to dust in her hands, once again saving her, filled the corridor with choking dust. Remaining on her hands and knees, Regina coughed until all was still.

She looked up when she heard nothing moving. Through the settling dust, Regina saw Emma lay on the ground, face down.

Regina stood slowly. As she took a couple steps toward Emma, more wriggling vines appeared from the opening. When she took a step back they receded. She picked up Henry's book, studying it as she tried to calm her mind and think of a solution. She stared through the darkness further down this side of the sewage tunnels, trying to figure out where it led compared to the layout of the town above. She was almost certain this side went east, further into town. The other side, where she had been, went to the town's western limit.

Emma groaned, coming to consciousness. Still holding the book, Regina ran to Emma's side, brushing blonde hair out of her face and searching her eyes. "You're all right!"

"Yeah." Emma's voice was groggy, but she rubbed her head and finally stood. "It is Henry's book," Emma's said as she took in the wrecked mess in Regina's arms.

"He was obviously down here. With the others?" Regina asked, with hope in her voice. His penchant for exploring places alone had never sat well with her.

"The backpack certainly suggests he was traveling."

"Why would he come here?" Regina worried.

"He's smart. Probably saw it the same way I did. If this came up, something had to be down to cause it."

"Everything is so wet."

"Well, let's see if we can't track a bit down this tunnel." Emma took the book from Regina, preparing to put it in Henry's backpack and sling it over her shoulder. The vines reappeared, wriggling toward Regina's feet. "Um. You carry this," she said, shoving Henry's backpack and book at the brunette. Still looking down, Emma abruptly said, "Fuck."

"Excuse me?" Regina juggled the book and bag until the one was inside the other and her brow furrowed at Emma's expression.

"Regina, I think the vines are to keep _you_ in Storybrooke."

"But I got outside the barrier to rescue you."

"Not without an enormous amount of damage to your body. I think the moment you did though, the... let's call it a security system... went haywire, and started ripping up the town to find you."

"But why would it particularly focus on me? It was my curse."

"It wasn't your curse," Emma reminded her. "It was Rumpelstiltskin's."

_It wasn't your curse. It was Rumpelstiltskin's. _The sound of her blood pounding in her ears made Regina dizzy. Emma grabbed her hand which steadied her a bit, but the anger and fear commingled threatening to choke her. "Rumpelstiltskin!" she screamed, wishing for a moment she could shake the life out of the man.

The tunnel shook and rumbled, making both Regina and Emma stagger to maintain their footing. Regina clutched Henry's bag to her chest. Suddenly she was engulfed in a bright blue-white light. She squeezed her eyes shut in reflex.

"Regina!" She heard Emma's scream.

When the bright light faded away dark spots filled her vision. When she opened her eyes, Regina saw luminescent spots on the tunnel floor. She looked over her shoulder and amid the spots still dancing in her vision, she lunged for Emma's hand. "This way!"

"What! I don't see anything."

She shouldered Henry's backpack. "There's a trail."

"Regina!" There was a note of warning.

"It's right there." Regina pointed; Emma stared at the floor, her expression searching, but uncomprehending. "You can't see it?" Regina hesitated.

"It has to be a trap," Emma said, shaking her head. "And what was that blast of light?"

"When it cleared I could see the path."

The blonde frowned. "So it was magic? But not mine. Why can't I see the trail?"

Regina considered the possible implications. _Why couldn't Emma see the trail?_ _Was it just an aftereffect of the light burst?_ She tentatively reached toward one of the luminescent spots that flickered as though with their own light every few yards further down the tunnel. When her fingers brushed it, she felt jagged edges. Adjusting her touch, she gingerly lifted it between a thumb and forefinger. Closer she could see it more clearly. "If they're all like this, they're glass shards... from a mirror."

"All right." Emma leaned over her shoulder and gently closed her hand around Regina's. "If you see it, we go forward. But you keep talking to me. Let me know what you're seeing, so I can protect you."

Regina dropped the shard, stood, and accepted Emma's kiss as the woman's arms wrapped around her waist. "Thank you."


End file.
